ABSTRACT
The identity of the naval warship was a fiercely contested in the mid-Victorian period. To untangle the connections between objects, actors and identities, to consider an actor-network-theory approach to knowledge, technology and social order. Actor network theory provides an analytical model for interpreting identity and agency based on how human members of a network used the resources available to them to inscribe meaning onto objects, how the identities of human actors were modified by their interactions with those objects. This chapter focuses on issues of trust in technology and the competing authorities of sailor, shipbuilder and naval critic. What it reveals is a scene of intense debate and doubt, rather than broad public confidence, about the identity of the navy during a period of major industrial change. The approach to technological agency developed shows how social groups namely, naval officers, engineers, scientists, politicians, naval writers were in continual dialogue of identity formation with objects, the ships of the Royal Navy.
