History | |
---|---|
United Kingdom | |
Name | Atlas |
Owner | Royal Navy |
Builder | Chatham Dockyard |
Way number | No. 6 Slip |
Laid down | 1858 |
Launched | 21 July 1860 |
In service | 1861 (in reserve) |
Out of service | 1885 |
Fate | Sold 1885 |
United Kingdom | |
Name | Atlas |
Owner | Metropolitan Asylums Board |
Acquired | 1885 |
In service | 1881 |
Out of service | 1904 |
Homeport | Deptford |
Fate | Scrapped 1904 |
General characteristics | |
Class and type |
|
Displacement | 5,260 Tons |
Tons burthen | 3,318 Tons bm |
Length | 245 ft (74.68 m) |
Decks | Two decks |
Propulsion | Steam engine, screw propeller |
Complement | 860 (planned) |
Armament |
|
HMS Atlas was a 91-gun second rate ship which was never completed and spent her entire service in reserve or as a hospital ship. She was launched in 1860, and lent to the Metropolitan Asylums Board for use as a hospital ship in 1881, and sold to them in 1885. Atlas served until 1904, when she was sold for breaking.
Atlas was 245 feet (74.68 m) long. She was to have been driven by a screw propeller. Had she been completed, her complement would have been 860 men. [1]
A sister ship to HMS Renown, [2] Atlas was to have been a 91-gun second rate ship of the line. She was built at Chatham Dockyard, Kent. [3] Laid down in 1858, [2] Atlas was one of the ships under construction at Chatham that were inspected by the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty on 23 August 1859. [4] Built on No. 6 Slip, Atlas was launched on 21 July 1860. The christening was performed by Mrs Schomberg, wife of Captain Schomberg. [5] On 24 July, Atlas was taken to Sheerness to be fitted with her 800 horsepower (600 kW) steam engines. [6] By April 1861, Atlas was undergoing trials under steam. [7]
Atlas was initially earmarked for the Channel Fleet. Atlas was placed in reserve, in 1861 at Sheerness. [1] She was reduced to 54 guns in 1870. [3] In 1874, Atlas was transferred to Chatham Dockyard. [1] She was totally disarmed in 1879. [3]
In June 1881, the Lords of the Admiralty agreed to lend Atlas and Endymion to the Metropolitan Asylums Board along with a steam pinnace, due to an outbreak of smallpox. Atlas was to be converted into a hospital ship for 250 patients. [8] A third hospital ship was Castalia. [9] The Metropolitan Asylums Board was to insure Atlas and Endymion for £11,000 and £8,000 respectively. There was opposition to the proposed use of Atlas from the Thames Conservancy and other public and private bodies. Agreement had been made to lease a berth at Deptford, Kent but when the managers of a company with premises nearby learned of the proposed use of Atlas as an isolation hospital, they put pressure on the owners of the berth with the result that the owners then decided not to allow Atlas to be berthed there. [8]
She was initially stationed at Greenwich, Kent, in a berth which had been previously used for another hospital ship. This drew an objection from the shipbuilders Messrs Rennie because some of their employees refused to work near the riverside where Atlas was moored. It was also necessary to move Atlas and Endymion every time Rennie's launched a ship. [10] Atlas was acquired by the board on 4 June, and Endymion on 5 July. [11] Atlas housed 120 patients. [12] In 1882, the Thames Conservancy wrote to the Metropolitan Asylums Board urging them to move Atlas and Endymion from Greenwich. The Thames Conservancy also called upon the board to pay a large claim for expenses incurred by Messrs Rennie's. At a meeting of the board, it was suggested that if moved, Atlas should be used for convalescent patients. The board decided to await the report from a Royal Commission into infectious diseases hospitals before deciding whether or not to move the ships. [13]
In August 1882, Atlas was moved to nearby Deptford Creek, [1] and in 1883 downstream to Long Reach, near Dartford. In February 1885, a meeting of the Metropolitan Asylums Board was informed that the Admiralty had stated that if the board wished to continue using Atlas and Endymion, they would have to purchase them at a cost of £8,400 and £6,500 respectively. The board replied that they would purchase the ships, but asked for the cost to be reduced. [14] In June, it was reported that the board were authorised to purchase both ships. [15] Following a fire on the training ship Goliath in 1875, engines and a generator were installed on board Atlas in 1886 to provide the ship with electric light, given that oil lamps had been deemed a fire hazard. [12] Atlas served as a hospital ship until 1904, when the new Joyce Green Hospital opened at Dartford, Kent. [1] Atlas was sold by auction in December, along with Endymion and Castalia for a total of £8,045. [16] Atlas realised £3,725. [12]
HMS Triumph was a broadside ironclad battleship of the Victorian era, the sister-ship of HMS Swiftsure. These two ships comprise the Swiftsure class of 1870.
HMS Monarch was the first seagoing British warship to carry her guns in turrets, and the first British warship to carry guns of 12-inch (300 mm) calibre.
HMS Caledonia was a 120-gun first-rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy, launched on 25 June 1808 at Plymouth. She was Admiral Pellew's flagship in the Mediterranean.
HMS Endymion was a first-class protected cruiser of the Edgar class. She served in China during the Boxer Rebellion and later in the First World War, and was sold in 1920.
HMS Belleisle was a 74-gun third-rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy, launched on 26 April 1819 at Pembroke Dockyard.
HMS Daring and HMS Decoy together made up the Daring class of torpedo boat destroyers which served with the Royal Navy during the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. On trial she made headlines as the 'Fastest Boat Ever'. The introduction of steam turbines after 1897 quickly made her and her sisters obsolete and she was sold off in 1912.
HMS Ardent was a Royal Navy 27 knot torpedo boat destroyer ordered from John I Thornycroft & Company under the 1893 – 1894 Naval Estimates. She was the sixth ship to carry this name.
Two ships of the British Royal Navy have been named HMS Atlas:
HMS Icarus was a Mariner-class composite screw gunvessel of 8 guns, and the third Royal Navy vessel to carry the name. She was launched in 1885 at Devonport and sold in 1904.
HMS Rapid was an 11-gun Rosario-class wooden-hulled screw-driven sloop of the Royal Navy, launched on 29 November 1860 at Deptford Dockyard and broken up in 1881.
HMS Endymion was a 21-gun Ister-class wooden screw frigate, the third of four ships of this name to serve in the Royal Navy. She was the last wooden frigate built at Deptford Dockyard. She was commissioned in 1866 and spent much of her service based at Malta. In 1869–70 she sailed around the world as part of a Flying Squadron. She remained in front-line service until 1874.
HMS Constance was a Comus-class steel corvette of the Royal Navy. She was launched from Chatham Dockyard on 9 June 1880.
The Ister-class frigates were a group of five 36-gun screw frigates ordered for the Royal Navy in the early 1860s. Four of the ships were cancelled after they were laid down and HMS Endymion was the only ship completed.
HMS Doterel was a Doterel-class sloop launched by the Royal Navy in 1880. She sank at anchor off Punta Arenas after an explosion on 26 April 1881. Her loss caused the deaths of 143 crew members, and there were 12 survivors. She was en route to join the Pacific Station. Her loss was initially the source of much speculation. Causes considered included an attack by the Fenians, a lost torpedo, and a coal gas explosion. An enquiry in September 1881 concluded coal gas was the cause.
Castalia was a 1,533 GRT twin-hulled paddle steamer that was built in 1874 by the Thames Ironworks and Shipbuilding Company, Leamouth, London for the English Channel Steamship Company. She was acquired by the London, Chatham and Dover Railway (LCDR) in 1878 but had already been laid up by then and was not operated by the LCDR. In 1883, she was sold to the Metropolitan Asylums Board and converted to a hospital ship. She served until 1904 and was scrapped in 1905.
HMS Cygnet was a two funnel, 30 knot destroyer ordered by the Royal Navy under the 1896–1897 Naval Estimates. She was the thirteenth ship to carry this name. She was launched in 1898, served in the Chatham division before World War I and was tendered to the gunnery school at Sheerness during the war. She was sold for breaking in 1920.
HMS Cynthia was a two funnel, 30-knot destroyer ordered by the Royal Navy under the 1896 – 1897 Naval Estimates. She was the third ship to carry this name. She was launched in 1898, served in home waters and the Mediterranean before World War I, and as a tender to the gunnery school at Sheerness during the war. She was sold for breaking in 1920.
Joyce Green Hospital was a hospital near Dartford, Kent, England. It opened in 1903 as an isolation hospital. In later years it was a training hospital. The hospital was closed in 2000 and the buildings were demolished. The greenspace where the hospital used to stand is known as Joyce Green.
HMS Tyne was a Royal Navy store ship. Charles Mitchell of Low Walker, Newcastle upon Tyne built her as yard number 354, and launched her on 19 January 1878 as the merchant ship Mariotis for the Moss Steam Ship Company of Liverpool. The Admiralty bought her for the Royal Navy on 8 March 1878. She was completed in June 1878.
Long Reach is a low-lying area north of Dartford, Kent, in southeast England, on the south side of the River Thames, east of Erith and the River Darent. It was the site of a pub, a fireworks factory, a smallpox hospital and, from 1911, a Vickers airfield that later became RAF Joyce Green. It also gives its name to a Thames Water sewage treatment works.
{{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)