A trend toward larger secondary batteries in foreign battleships led to the eight-ship King Edward VII class, which carried 9.2 in (234 mm) guns. The latter were built as a stopgap while White completed work on the faster Duncan class, which were intended to counter new Russian ships. Six slightly smaller Canopus-class battleships intended for the China Station followed, after which White designed another tranche of eight larger battleships: three Formidable- and five very similar London-class ships. The nine Majestic-class battleships followed as refinements of White's original design, and they proved to be widely influential as foreign navies copied their general characteristics. They were followed by a trio of smaller, second-class battleships intended for overseas duties: the two Centurion-class battleships and HMS Renown. The first class, the Royal Sovereign class, comprised eight ships and introduced the standard armament layout associated with pre-dreadnought type battleships. William Henry White served as the Director of Naval Construction from 1885 to 1902 and thus oversaw the development of most of the pre-dreadnoughts. Primarily concerned with maintaining its "two-power standard" of numerical superiority over the combined French and Russian fleets, the Royal Navy built or purchased a total of fifty-two battleships of this type prior to the 1906 completion of the revolutionary all-big-gun Dreadnought, which gave the pre-dreadnoughts their name. These ships were characterised by a main battery of four heavy guns-typically 12-inch (305 mm) guns-in two twin mounts, a secondary armament that usually comprised 4.7-to-6-inch (120 to 150 mm) guns, and a high freeboard. The British Royal Navy built a series of pre-dreadnought battleships as part of a naval expansion programme that began with the Naval Defence Act 1889.
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