The essential difficulty with pulling it off in the late Victorian period is, basically, that the Admiralty were a paranoid bunch. It was fairly standard for them to just order - and complete - enough ships to swamp their nearest rivals'
planned ship programmes (which never got finished).
I suppose some kind of grand secret conspiracy *might* be able to pull together between them enough strength - just - to match the RN in the 1880s, but that's difficult to say the least.
Frankly it's easier with a PoD in Britain. Have HMS Excellent (the gunnery school) removed, with no replacement, and you've basically got an unnoticed major problem with the ships... combine it with intensive and secret gunnery training for the other powers, and you can start to overcome the RN as a problem.
That reduces it to the problem of invading, and in 1880 you've got a total of 124,000 men in the regulars (not counting reserves, and I assume not counting Indian establishment) with fairly modern rifles and the like. (Martini-Henry, RML 13lb 8cwt.)
Of course, if you can ship over about two million Zulu then there might be a major problem...
It'd make a great book, though.
EDIT - to follow up on that, invasion literature is a great way to judge both the perceived and real vulnerabilities of a nation. As they're basically early techno-thrillers, you get a great deal of research... and you can tell a lot from where handwaves happen.
e.g. in the Battle of Dorking the RN is destroyed by handwave and Britain ultimately loses.
In the Great War in England in 1897, the entire RN had to be ordered away by fictitious telegrams. The war is ultimately won by - among other things - German intervention against the Franco-Russian alliance.
In Red Dawn, "geopolitical shifts" handwave away NATO.
And in The Stricken Nation, the handwaves are on the other foot (hand?) - they're handwaves to allow the US to win.
Meanwhile, the War of the Worlds is very entertaining to read these days - simply because you realize the Martians which could effortlessly stomp the most mighty nation of the 1890s are pretty much cannon fodder for a post-WW2 army.