Napier of Magdala Battery
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In 1883 the British government installed a single Armstrong 450mm (17.72 inch) rifled muzzle loading 100-ton gun in a battery by Rosia Bay in Gibraltar that they named the Napier of Magdala Battery after Field Marshal Robert Napier, 1st Baron Napier of Magdala, who had served as Governor of Gibraltar from 1876 to 1883. Earlier, in 1879, they had mounted another such gun in Gibraltar in Victoria Battery. These two batteries, together with two similar ones in Malta at Cambridge Battery and Fort Rinella, were a response to the Italians having, in 1873, built the battleship Duilio which was to receive four 100-ton Armstrong guns of the same design.
The gun at Napier of Magdala was originally sited at Victoria Battery, but the British moved it to Napier when the gun there split during firing practice. The gun at Napier Battery received the nickname, the Rockbuster. It was last fired in 2002 (with a very small signalling charge) to mark the Calpe 2002 Conference between Gibraltar and Malta.
