The first ironclads-the French Gloire and HMS Warrior-looked much like sailing frigates, with three tall masts and broadside batteries, when they were commissioned in the early 1860s. The pre-dreadnought developed from the ironclad battleship. This ship, launched in 1875, should not be confused with her famous successor, launched in 1906, marking the end of the pre-dreadnought era. HMS Dreadnought shows the low freeboard typical for early ironclad turret-ships. The last decisive clash of pre-dreadnought fleets was between the Imperial Japanese Navy and the Imperial Russian Navy at the Battle of Tsushima on. Meanwhile, the battleship fleets of the United Kingdom, France, and Russia expanded to meet these new threats. New naval powers such as Germany, Japan, the United States, and to a lesser extent Italy and Austria-Hungary, began to establish themselves with fleets of pre-dreadnoughts. The similarity in appearance of battleships in the 1890s was underlined by the increasing number of ships being built. These ships distinctively carried a main battery of very heavy guns upon the weather deck, in large rotating mounts either fully or partially armoured over, and supported by one or more secondary batteries of lighter weapons on broadside. Built from steel, protected by compound, nickel steel or case-hardened steel armour, pre-dreadnought battleships were driven by coal-fired boilers powering compound reciprocating steam engines which turned underwater screws.

In contrast to the multifarious development of ironclads in preceding decades, the 1890s saw navies worldwide start to build battleships to a common design as dozens of ships essentially followed the design of the Royal Navy's Majestic class. The pre-dreadnought battleships were the pre-eminent warships of their time and replaced the ironclad battleships of the 1870s and 1880s.

In their day, they were simply known as 'battleships' or else more rank-specific terms such as 'first-class battleship' and so forth. Their designs were conceived before the appearance of HMS Dreadnought in 1906 and their classification as 'pre-dreadnought' is retrospectively applied. Pre-dreadnought battleships were sea-going battleships built from the mid- to late- 1880s to the late 1900s. HMS Royal Sovereign was the first pre-dreadnought battleship of the Royal Navy.

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