HMS Aurora was a 32-gun fifth-rate frigate of the Royal Navy. [1] [2] The ship was built in Chatham Dockyard and launched on 13 January 1766. [3] She was later purchased and transferred to the East India Company in 1768. [1]
John Monkton was recorded as serving on her prior to September 1769 but was transferred to another ship before her final voyage. [4]
In September 1769, she sailed from England for the East Indies, intending to stop at Anjouan island and Bombay. After calling at the Cape of Good Hope for provisions in December 1769, she disappeared in the Indian Ocean around January 1770, presumably sunk by fire, storm or wrecked off Madagascar. [1] It was later reported that some large anchors and cannons, likely of British manufacture were found close to Star Bank off Madagascar and these may have been from the ship. [1]
Among those notable members of the crew who disappeared with her was Robert Pitcairn from which the Pitcairn Islands take their name. [5] William Falconer, a noted poet and marine dictionary writer, was also among those lost at sea. He was assigned as the ship's purser. [1]
HMS Endeavour was a British Royal Navy research vessel that Lieutenant James Cook commanded to Tahiti, New Zealand and Australia on his first voyage of discovery from 1768 to 1771.
The history of the Pitcairn Islands begins with the colonization of the islands by Polynesians in the 11th century. Polynesian people established a culture that flourished for four centuries and then vanished. They lived on Pitcairn and Henderson Islands, and on Mangareva Island 540 kilometres (340 mi) to the northwest, for about 400 years.
Ten ships of the Royal Navy have been called HMS Aurora or HMS Aurore, after the Roman Goddess of the dawn.
HMS Zebra, was an 18-gun Cruizer-class brig-sloop of the Royal Navy. She was built of teak in the East India Company's Bombay Dockyard and launched in 1815 as the last of her class. She chased pirates in the Mediterranean, just missed the Battle of Navarino, sailed to East Indies, where she almost foundered, and on to Australia, chased Malay pirates, and was wrecked in 1840 during the Syrian War.
HMS Pegasus was a 28-gun Enterprise-class sixth rate. This frigate was launched in 1779 at Deptford and sold in 1816. Pegasus had a relatively uneventful career and is perhaps best known for the fact that her captain from 1786 to 1789 was Prince William Henry, the future King William IV. By 1811 Pegasus was a receiving ship at Chatham; she was sold in 1816.
HMS Intrepid was a 64-gun third-rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy, launched on 4 December 1770 at Woolwich. She was sold in 1828.
The Adriatic campaign was a minor theatre of war during the Napoleonic Wars in which a succession of small British Royal Navy and Austrian Navy squadrons and independent cruisers harried the combined naval forces of the First French Empire, the Kingdom of Italy, the Illyrian Provinces and the Kingdom of Naples between 1807 and 1814 in the Adriatic Sea. Italy, Naples and Illyria were all controlled either directly or via proxy by the French Emperor Napoleon I, who had seized them at the Treaty of Pressburg in the aftermath of the War of the Third Coalition.
HMS Thetis was a 36-gun fifth-rate frigate of the Royal Navy. After nearly a decade of service with the British, she was transferred to Prussia in exchange for two steam gunboats. She served with the Prussian Navy, the North German Federal Navy and the Imperial German Navy as a training ship until being stricken in 1871. Thetis was subsequently converted into a coal hulk and broken up in 1894–95.
HMS Centurion was a 50-gun Salisbury-class fourth rate of the Royal Navy. She served during the American War of Independence, and during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars.
John MacBride was a British officer of the Royal Navy and a politician who saw service during the Seven Years' War, the American War of Independence and the French Revolutionary Wars, eventually rising to the rank of Admiral of the Blue.
Concorde was a 32-gun frigate of the French Navy, lead ship of her class. Built in Rochefort in 1777, she entered service with the French early in the American War of Independence and was soon in action, capturing HMS Minerva in the West Indies. She survived almost until near the end of the war when HMS Magnificent captured her in 1783. Not immediately brought into service due to the draw-down in the navy after the end of the war, Concorde underwent repairs and returned to active service with the outbreak of war with France in 1793 as the fifth-rate HMS Concorde.
HMS Comus was a corvette of the Royal Navy. She was the name ship of her class. Launched in April 1878, the vessel was built by Messrs. J. Elder & Co of Glasgow at a cost of £123,000.
HMS Herald was an Atholl-class 28-gun sixth-rate corvette of the Royal Navy. She was launched in 1822 as HMS Termagant, commissioned in 1824 as HMS Herald and converted to a survey ship in 1845. After serving as a chapel ship from 1861, she was sold for breaking in 1862.
HMS Harrier was a Cruizer-class brig-sloop launched in 1804. She took part in several notable actions before she was lost in March 1809, presumed foundered.
HMS Aurora was a 28-gun Enterprise-class sixth-rate frigate of the Royal Navy, that saw service during the American and French Revolutionary wars, and the Napoleonic Wars. Designed to carry a complement of 200 men, she was armed with a main battery of twenty-four 9-pound guns.
HMS Lizard was a 28-gun Coventry-class sixth-rate frigate of the Royal Navy, in service from 1757 to 1828. Named after the Lizard, a peninsula in southern Cornwall, she was a broad-beamed and sturdy vessel designed for lengthy periods at sea. Her crewing complement was 200 and, when fully equipped, she was armed with 24 nine-pounder cannons, supported by four three-pounders and twelve 1⁄2-pounder swivel guns. Despite her sturdy build, she was plagued with maintenance problems and had to be repeatedly removed from service for repair.
Sir Samuel Warren KCB, KCH was an officer of the Royal Navy who served during the American War of Independence, and the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars.
HMS Briton was a 38-gun fifth-rate frigate of the British Royal Navy's Leda class. She was ordered on 28 September 1808 and her keel laid down at Chatham Dockyard in February 1810. Navy veteran Sir Thomas Staines was appointed her first captain on 7 May 1812 but did not join the ship until 17 June 1813 owing to his being at sea aboard HMS Hamadryad. After a period of cruising in the Bay of Biscay, the vessel set sail for South America where during the course of several missions she unexpectedly encountered the last member of the crew that had seized HMS Bounty from its captain Lieutenant William Bligh during the 1789 mutiny aboard the ship. With the coming of the Pax Britannica in 1815, Briton undertook various voyages before she was broken up in 1860.
Robert Pitcairn was a Scottish midshipman in the Royal Navy. Pitcairn Island was named after him: he was the first person to spot the island on 2 July 1767, while serving in a voyage in the South Pacific on HMS Swallow, captained by Philip Carteret.
Rear-Admiral Christopher Hill was a Royal Navy officer who served as Commander-in-Chief, River Medway and the Nore. Having joined the Royal Navy in 1731, Hill served off Ireland, Portugal, and in the Mediterranean Sea before being promoted to commander in 1746. After several commands he was then promoted to post-captain in 1747. While commanding HMS Dover he captured the French East Indiaman Pondichéry during the Seven Years' War. Hill was on half pay between 1760 and 1769, then being given command of HMS Augusta and serving as Commander-in-Chief, River Medway and the Nore for the following year. His last command was HMS Barfleur towards the end of the year. A well thought of officer, Hill was promoted to rear-admiral in January 1778 but was killed in a fall from his horse six months later.