Rating system of the Royal Navy

Not to be confused with naval rating, an enlisted member of the navy falling into one of several ranks.
This article is about the rating of Royal Navy ships. For the rating of late Georgian and early Victorian buildings, see Building Act 1774.

A 1728 diagram illustrating a first- and a third-rate ship

The rating system of the Royal Navy and its predecessors was used by the Royal Navy between the beginning of the 17th century and the middle of the 19th century to categorise sailing warships, initially classing them according to their assigned complement of men, and later according to the number of their carriage-mounted guns. The rating system of the Royal Navy formally came to an end in the late 19th century by declaration of the Admiralty. The main cause behind this declaration focused on new types of gun, the introduction of steam propulsion and the use of iron and steel armour which made rating ships by the number of guns obsolete.