"This year a new departure will be made in respect of submarines which have hitherto been built by private contractor. This year the Admiralty are keeping some of them for their own dockyards and they will have to go to Chatham."
Mr Edmund Robertson,
Parliamentary Secretary to the Admiralty,
House of Commons,
July 1906
The laying down of C17, Chatham's first submarine, on the 11th March 1907 marked the start of nearly 60 years of submarine building at the Royal Dockyard at Chatham. Submarine construction gave a new lease of life to the dockyard, which had launched its last battleship HMS Africa, two years earlier. The majority of the 57 submarines built at Chatham Dockyard were built on No.7 Covered Slip. It was here that the Dockyard's workforce developed new shipbuilding skills as they successfully launched twenty four submarines of the 'C', 'D', 'E', 'F', 'G' and 'R' classes between 1908-1918.
HMS C17 was the first submarine to be built for the Royal Navy at Chatham Dockyard. She was launched on the 13th August 1908. HMS C17 served throughout the First World War. The image above shows C17 underway off Portsmouth. C17 was sold for scrap in November 1919.
Image: © Chatham Historic Dockyard Trust
