HMS Active

Last updated January 06, 2024

Twelve ships of the Royal Navy have been named HMS Active or HMS Actif, with a thirteenth currently under construction:

HMS Active (1758) was a 28-gun sixth rate launched in 1758 and captured in 1778 by two French frigates off San Domingo.^[1]
HMS Active (1776) was a 14-gun brig-sloop launched in 1776 and captured in 1780 by the American privateer General Pickering off New York.^[2]
HMS Active (1779) was a 12-gun cutter that entered service in 1779 and surrendered that same year to the French cutter Mutin when Active encountered and was unable to escape the combined Franco-Spanish fleet in the English Channel.^[3] The French took her into service as Actif and later Activ No.1 (1782). She was paid off at Brest in December 1782 and broken up there early the next year.^[4]
HMS Active (1780) was a 32-gun fifth rate launched in 1780 and wrecked in 1796 on Anticosti Island at the mouth of the Saint Lawrence River.^[5]
HMS Active (1782) was a 14-gun brig-sloop listed in 1782.
HMS Actif (1794) was a 16-gun privateer that Iphigenia captured from the French on 16 March 1794; she foundered on 26 November, although all her crew were saved.
HMS Active (1799) was a 38-gun fifth rate launched in 1799. She was placed on harbour service in 1826, renamed HMS Argo in 1833, and was broken up in 1860.
HMS Active (1845) was a 36-gun fifth rate launched in 1845, becoming a training ship and being renamed HMS Tyne in 1867 and HMS Durham in 1867. She was sold in 1908.
HMS Active (1869) was a Volage-class iron screw corvette launched in 1869 and sold in 1906.
HMS Active (1911) was an Active-class scout cruiser launched in 1911 and scrapped in 1920.
HMS Active (H14) was an A-class destroyer launched in 1928 and broken up in 1947.
HMS Active (F171) was a Type 21 frigate launched in 1972. She was sold to the Pakistan Navy in 1994 and was renamed Shah Jahan.
HMS Active (Type 31 frigate) is a Type 31 frigate that is currently under construction.

Battle honours

Ships named Active have earned the following battle honours:

Lagos, 1759
Trincomalee, 1782
Camperdown, 1797
Egypt, 1801
Lissa, 1811
Pelagosa, 1811
Ashantee, 1873−74
Jutland, 1916
Atlantic, 1939−44
Bismarck, 1941
Diego Suarez, 1942
Arctic, 1944
Falkland Islands, 1982

Related Research Articles

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HMS Ambuscade was a 32-gun fifth-rate frigate of the Royal Navy, built in the Grove Street shipyard of Adams & Barnard at Depford in 1773. The French captured her in 1798 but the British recaptured her in 1803. She was broken up in 1810.

HMS Amphitrite was a 24-gun Porcupine-class sixth-rate post ship of the Royal Navy. She served during the American Revolution primarily in the economic war. On the one hand she protected the trade by capturing or assisting at the capture of a number of privateers, some of which the Royal Navy then took into service. On the other hand, she also captured many American merchant vessels, most of them small. Amphitrite was wrecked early in 1794.

Twenty-two ships of the Royal Navy have borne the name HMS Fortune:

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Nine ships of the Royal Navy have been named HMS Zephyr after Zephyrus, the Greek god of the west wind:

Ten ships of the Royal Navy have borne the name HMS Laurel. Another was planned but never completed. The first British ship of the name served in the Commonwealth navy. All were named after the plant family Lauraceae.

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HMS Barbuda was commissioned into the Royal Navy in 1780 after having briefly served as an American privateer. Barbuda was one of the two sloops that captured Demerara and Essequibo in 1781, but the French Navy captured her there in 1782 and took her into service as Barboude. The French Navy sold her to private owners in 1786, and she served briefly as a privateer in early 1793 before the French Navy purchased her again and named her Légère. She served them until mid-1796 when the Royal Navy captured her and took her into service as HMS Legere. She was wrecked off the coast of Colombia, without loss of life, in February 1801.

HMS Ceres was an 18-gun sloop launched in 1777 for the British Royal Navy that the French captured in December 1778 off Saint Lucia. The French Navy took her into service as Cérès. The British recaptured her in 1782 and renamed her HMS Raven, only to have the French recapture her again early in 1783. The French returned her name to Cérès, and she then served in the French Navy until sold at Brest in 1791.

The French brig Duc de Chartres was built between 1779 and 1780 at Le Havre as a 24-gun privateer. As a privateer she captured one British warship before in 1781 the Royal Navy captured her. The Royal Navy took her into service as HMS Duc de Chartres. She then captured several American privateers and armed merchant vessels, and one French naval corvette in a noteworthy single-ship action. The Navy sold Duc de Chartres in 1784.

HMS True Briton was a cutter the Royal Navy purchased in 1778. In 1779 she participated in a successful operation that resulted in the capture of a French frigate and several other naval vessels. The French Navy captured True Briton in 1780. She became the mercantile Tartare. The Royal Navy recaptured her and recommissioned her as HMS True Briton. The Navy laid her up in 1783 and sold her in 1785.

References

Citations

↑ Hepper (1994), p. 53.
↑ Hepper (1994), p .58.
↑ Hepper (1994), p. 56.
↑ Demerliac (1996), p. 89, #588.
↑ Hepper (1994), p. 80.
↑ "No. 15314". The London Gazette . 25 November 1800. p. 1331.

Bibliography

Colledge, J. J.; Warlow, Ben (2006) [1969]. Ships of the Royal Navy: The Complete Record of all Fighting Ships of the Royal Navy (Rev. ed.). London: Chatham Publishing. ISBN 978-1-86176-281-8.
Demerliac, Alain (1996) La Marine De Louis XVI: Nomenclature Des Navires Français De 1774 À 1792. (Nice: Éditions OMEGA).

This article includes a list of ships with the same or similar names. If an internal link for a specific ship led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended ship article, if one exists.

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[1] Hepper (1994), p. 53.

[2] Hepper (1994), p .58.

[3] Hepper (1994), p. 56.

[4] Demerliac (1996), p. 89, #588.

[5] Hepper (1994), p. 80.

[6] "No. 15314". The London Gazette . 25 November 1800. p. 1331.

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