Choosing Names of Warships.

Kaipara and Waitemata Echo, 10 July 1914, Page 8

Choosing Names of Warships.

The names for the twenty new destroyers for the Navy are to be taken from the works of Sir Walter Scott and Shakespeare. Florizel, Ivanhoe, Waverley, Rob Roy, Portia, Hotspur, Orlando, Rosalind, and Viola, are some of the names chosen for the new fighting ships. This is quite a modern innovation, although the action of the First Lord of the Admiralty in selecting literary names for warships is not entirely unprecedented. About the. middle of last century there were some Revenue vessels called Rob Roy and the Lady of the Lake, while a century ago one or two Shakespeare names were used, such .as Imogene and Orlando. These, however, seem to be the only occasions when literary names were used for warships. The naming of British men-of-war rests with the First Lord of the Admiralty, although the selection has to be sanctioned and approved