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HMS Bellerophon, known to sailors as the "Billy Ruffian", was a ship of the line of the Royal Navy. A third-rate of 74 guns, she was launched in 1786. Bellerophon served during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, mostly on blockades or convoy escort duties. She fought in three fleet actions: the Glorious First of June (1794), the Battle of the Nile (1798) and the Battle of Trafalgar (1805). While the ship was on blockade duty in 1815, Napoleon boarded Bellerophon so he could surrender to the ship's captain, ending 22 years of almost continuous war between Britain and France.
Woolwich Dockyard was an English naval dockyard along the river Thames at Woolwich - originally in north-west Kent, now in southeast London - where many ships were built from the early 16th century until the late 19th century. William Camden called it 'the Mother Dock of all England'. By virtue of the size and quantity of vessels built there, Woolwich Dockyard is described as having been 'among the most important shipyards of seventeenth-century Europe'. During the Age of Sail, the yard continued to be used for shipbuilding and repair work more or less consistently; in the 1830s a specialist factory within the dockyard oversaw the introduction of steam power for ships of the Royal Navy. At its largest extent it filled a 56-acre site north of Woolwich Church Street, between Warspite Road and New Ferry Approach; 19th-century naval vessels were fast outgrowing the yard, however, and it eventually closed in 1869. The former dockyard area is now partly residential, partly industrial, with remnants of its historic past having been restored.
A hulk is a ship that is afloat, but incapable of going to sea. Hulk may be used to describe a ship that has been launched but not completed, an abandoned wreck or shell, or to refer to a ship whose propulsion system is no longer maintained or has been removed altogether. The word hulk also may be used as a verb: a ship is "hulked" to convert it to a hulk. The verb was also applied to crews of Royal Navy ships in dock, who were sent to the receiving ship for accommodation, or "hulked". Hulks have a variety of uses such as housing, prisons, salvage pontoons, gambling sites, naval training, or cargo storage.
Royal Charles was an 80-gun first-rate three-decker ship of the line of the English Navy. She was built by Peter Pett and launched at Woolwich Dockyard in 1655, for the navy of the Commonwealth of England. She was originally called Naseby, named in honour of Sir Thomas Fairfax's decisive 1645 victory over the Royalist forces during the English Civil Wars. She was ordered in 1654 as one of a programme of four second rates, intended to carry 60 guns each. However, she was altered during construction to mount a complete battery of guns along the upper deck, and so was reclassed as a first rate.
HMS Vanguard was a 90-gun second-rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy, built at Portsmouth Dockyard and launched in 1678.
HMS Royal George was a ship of the line of the Royal Navy. A first-rate with 100 guns on three decks, she was the largest warship in the world at the time of her launch on 18 February 1756. Construction at Woolwich Dockyard had taken ten years.
His Majesty's Naval Base, Portsmouth is one of three operating bases in the United Kingdom for the Royal Navy. Portsmouth Naval Base is part of the city of Portsmouth; it is located on the eastern shore of Portsmouth Harbour, north of the Solent and the Isle of Wight. For centuries it was officially known as HM Dockyard, Portsmouth: as a Royal Dockyard, Portsmouth functioned primarily as a state-owned facility for building, repairing and maintaining warships; for a time it was the largest industrial site in the world.
Careening is a method of gaining access to the hull of a sailing vessel without the use of a dry dock. It is used for cleaning or repairing the hull. Before ship's hulls were protected from marine growth by fastening copper sheets over the surface of the hull, fouling by this growth would seriously affect the sailing qualities of a ship, causing a large amount of drag. As this growth was underwater, removing it was difficult. Beaching the vessel at high tide allowed the lower hull to be exposed for cleaning or repairs.
HMS Tremendous was a 74-gun third rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy, designed by Edward Hunt, built to the lines of HMS Ganges by William Barnard's yard at Deptford Green, and launched on 30 October 1784.
HMS Fame was a 74-gun third rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy, built at Deptford Dockyard. She was constructed on the same building slip as was HMS Courageux, her keel having been ordered to be laid down on it immediately after the other ship's launch on 26 March 1800. The first elements of her keel were finally laid down on 22 January 1802, and Fame was launched on 8 October 1805.
HMS Nelson was a 126-gun first rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy, launched on 4 July 1814 at Woolwich Dockyard, but then laid up incomplete at Portsmouth until 1854, when work began with a view to commissioning her for service in the Crimean War, but this ended before much work had been done, and the ship returned to reserve.
HMS Warspite was a 70-gun third-rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy, launched in 1666 at Blackwall Yard. This second Warspite was one of the five ships designed to carry more provisions and lower deck guns higher above the water than French and Dutch equivalents. In 1665 the Second Anglo-Dutch War had begun and on 25 July 1666 Warspite was one of 23 new English warships helping to beat a Dutch fleet off North Foreland, Kent. She won again distinction on Christmas Day 1666 as senior officer's ship out of five sent to protect an important convoy of naval stores from the Baltic. Warspite next took part in the first action of the Third Anglo-Dutch War on 28 May 1672 off Southwold Bay, Suffolk. This desperate 14-hour battle, generally known as Solebay, was a drawn fight; but Warspite successfully fended off a pair of Dutch fire ships exactly as she had done off North Foreland. By 1685, she was mounting only 68 guns.
HMS Rupert was a 64-gun third rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy, launched at Harwich Dockyard on 26 January 1666 and broken up in 1769.
The English ship Speaker was a 50-gun third-rate. Speaker was built for the navy of the Commonwealth of England by Christopher Pett at Woolwich Dockyard and launched in 1650. At the Restoration she was renamed HMS Mary. She was the prototype of the Speaker-class.
President was a 38-gun fourth rate frigate of the Royal Navy, originally built for the navy of the Commonwealth of England by Peter Pett I at Deptford Dockyard, and launched in 1650.
Coronation was a 90-gun second-rate ship of the line of the English Royal Navy, built at Portsmouth Dockyard as part of the '30 great ships programme' of 1677, and launched in 1685. She was lost in a storm off Rame Head, Cornwall on 3 September 1691 and is designated under the Protection of Wrecks Act 1973. The wreck is a Protected Wreck managed by Historic England.
HMS Captain was a 70-gun third rate built at Woolwich Dockyard in 1677/78. After sitting in Ordinary for ten years she was in active commission for the War of the English Succession fighting at Beachy Head and Barfleur. She was in Ordinary until 1706 when she was rebuilt. She was in active commission for the last half of the War of Spanish Succession but fought in no major engagements. She was at the Battle of Passero I 1718. She was rebuilt in 1720/22. She made two forays in to the Baltic though the bulk of her late career was spent as guardship at Portsmouth. She was hulked in 1740 and finally broken in 1762.
HMS Burford was a 70-gun third rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy, built at Chatham Dockyard to the draught specified by the 1745 Establishment as amended in 1754, and launched in 1757.
Deptford Dockyard was an important naval dockyard and base at Deptford on the River Thames, operated by the Royal Navy from the sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries. It built and maintained warships for 350 years, and many significant events and ships have been associated with it.
HMS Bridgewater was a 32-gun fifth rate built at Sheerness Dockyard in 1697/98.
References
- Britton, John (1803). The Beauties of England and Wales, Or, Delineations, Topographical, Historical, and Descriptive, of Each County. Vol. 4. Verner & Hood.
- Lavery, Brian (1989). Nelson's Navy: The Ships, Men, and Organisation: 1793–1815. Conway Maritime Press. ISBN 0-85177-521-7.
- Partington, Charles Frederick (1836). The British Cyclopædia of Literature, History, Geography, Law, and Politics. Vol. 1. Orr & Smith.
