HMS Constance (1846)

Last updated

The steam frigate H.M.S. 'Constance' off Rame Head heading into Plymouth.jpg
Constance off Rame Head heading into Plymouth, by Richard Brydges Beechey
History
Naval Ensign of the United Kingdom.svg United Kingdom
NameHMS Constance
Ordered31 March 1843
Builder Pembroke Dockyard
Laid downOctober 1843
Launched12 May 1846
Completed28 June 1846
ReclassifiedConverted to screw frigate between 1860-62 at Devonport Dockyard
Refit1862
FateSold for breaking up on 23 January 1875
General characteristics As ordered
Class and type50-gun Constance-class fourth-rate frigate
Tons burthen2,125 75/94 bm
Length
  • 180 ft (54.9 m) (overall)
  • 146 ft 10.25 in (44.8 m) (keel)
Beam52 ft 8 in (16.1 m)
Depth of hold16 ft 3 in (4.95 m)
PropulsionSails
Sail plan Full-rigged ship
Complement500
Armament
  • Upper deck: 28 x 32pdrs (10 x 8in/68pdr shell guns later replaced 10 x 32pdrs)
  • Quarter deck: 14 x 32pdrs
  • Forecastle: 8 x 32pdrs
General characteristics After 1860-62 refit
Class and type50-gun fourth-rate frigate
Displacement3,786 tons
Tons burthen3,212 bm
Length
  • 253 ft 11 in (77.4 m) (overall)
  • 219 ft 2 in (66.8 m) (keel)
Beam53 ft (16.2 m)
Draught
  • 21 ft 1 in (6.43 m) (forward)
  • 23 ft 7 in (7.19 m) (aft)
Depth of hold17 ft 1 in (5.21 m)
Propulsion
Sail plan Full-rigged ship
Constance joining the Experimental Squadron, from a sketch by one of her officers' Lieut. J.F.B. Wainwright circa 1846-9 H.M.S. Constance, 50 guns... joining the Experimental Squadron RMG PY0935.jpg
Constance joining the Experimental Squadron, from a sketch by one of her officers' Lieut. J.F.B. Wainwright circa 1846-9

HMS Constance was a 50-gun fourth-rate frigate of the Royal Navy launched on 12 May 1846. She had a tonnage of 2,132 and was designed with a V-shaped hull by Sir William Symonds. [1] [2] She was also one of the last class of frigates designed by him. [3] On her shakedown voyage from England to Valparaiso she rounded Cape Horn in good trim, her captain for this voyage being Sir Baldwin Wake Walker, who commented "I think her a good sea boat, and a fine man of war". On the voyage she encountered a hurricane at 62° south. Walker wrote that "nothing could have exceeded the way she went over it, not even straining a rope yarn". [4] In August 1848, her captain George William Courtenay, for whom the town of Courtenay was named, [5] led 250 sailors and marines from Fort Victoria to try to intimidate the Indians. [6]

Contents

Constance in Esquimalt Harbour 1848, a sketch by John Turnstall Haverfield, a marine on board ship HMS Constance in 1848.jpg
Constance in Esquimalt Harbour 1848, a sketch by John Turnstall Haverfield, a marine on board ship

In 1848, she became the first Royal Naval vessel to use Esquimalt as her base. [7]

Constance (far left) in operations at "The Temple Fort of Dwarka, at the entrance of the Gulf of Kutch," from the Illustrated London News, 1860 "The Temple Fort of Dwarka, at the entrance of the Gulf of Kutch," from the Illustrated London News, 1860.jpg
Constance (far left) in operations at "The Temple Fort of Dwarka, at the entrance of the Gulf of Kutch," from the Illustrated London News, 1860

In 1859, she was involved in the bombardment of Dwarka in the state of Gujarat in north western India.

In 1862, she was converted to screw propulsion using a compound steam engine [8] designed by Randolph & Elder. [9] She was the first Royal Naval ship to be fitted with this class of engine, and won a race against two frigates from Plymouth to Madeira in 1865. [10]

Her crew and officers were quarantined aboard whilst berthed at Port Royal on 26 October 1867 during an outbreak of Yellow Fever [11]

Related Research Articles

HMS <i>Duke of Wellington</i> (1852) Ship of the line of the Royal Navy

HMS Duke of Wellington was a 131-gun first-rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy. Launched in 1852, she was symptomatic of an era of rapid technological change in the navy, being powered both by sail and steam. An early steam-powered ship, she was still fitted with towering masts and trim square-set yards, and was the flagship of Sir Charles Napier.

HMS <i>Vanguard</i> (1835) Vanguard-class ship of the line

The sixth HMS Vanguard, of the British Royal Navy was a 78-gun second-rate ship of the line, launched on 25 August 1835 at Pembroke Yard. She was the first of a new type of sailing battleship: a Symondite.

HMS <i>Albion</i> (1842) Ship of the line of the Royal Navy

HMS Albion was a 90-gun second-rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy. Ordered in 1839, she was built at Plymouth Dockyard, launched on 6 September 1842, and completed on 23 January 1844. Albion was designed by Sir William Symonds, was the only ship of her class to ever serve as a sailing ship, and the last British two-decker to be completed and enter service without a steam engine. She was the name ship of a class of three second rates—the others being Aboukir and Exmouth.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pacific Station</span> Military unit

The Pacific Station was created in 1837 as one of the geographical military formations into which the Royal Navy divided its worldwide responsibilities. The South America Station was split into the Pacific Station and the South East Coast of America Station.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Andrew Lambert</span> British naval historian (born 1956)

Andrew Lambert is a British naval historian, who since 2001 has been the Laughton Professor of Naval History in the Department of War Studies, King's College London.

HMS <i>Ajax</i> (1809) Vengeur-class ship of the line

HMS Ajax was a 74-gun third rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy, launched on 2 May 1809 at Blackwall Yard.

HMS <i>Tartar</i> (1756) Frigate of the Royal Navy

HMS Tartar was a 28-gun sixth-rate frigate of the Royal Navy.

HMS <i>Inconstant</i> (1868) British screw frigate

HMS Inconstant was an unarmored, iron-hulled, screw frigate built for the Royal Navy in the late 1860s. Upon completion in 1869, she was the fastest warship in the world and was assigned to the Channel Squadron. Two years later the ship was transferred to the Detached Squadron for a brief time before she was paid off into reserve in 1872. Inconstant was recommissioned in 1880 for service with the Flying Squadron that circumnavigated the world in 1880–82. On the return voyage, the ship was diverted to Egypt during the Anglo-Egyptian War of 1882 and played a minor role supporting operations ashore. She was reduced to reserve again after her return and was served as an accommodation ship in 1897. Inconstant was hulked in 1904 and became a training ship in 1906. She continued in that role, under a variety of names, until she was sold for scrap in 1955 and subsequently broken up, the second-to-last surviving Pembroke-built warship in existence.

HMS <i>Warspite</i> (1807) Ship, 1807

HMS Warspite was a 74-gun third-rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy, launched in 1807. She served in the Napoleonic Wars and was decommissioned in 1815. After conversion to a 76-gun ship in 1817 she circumnavigated the world, visiting Australia. She was cut down to a single decker 50-gun frigate in 1840 and was decommissioned in 1846. She was lent as a boys' training ship to The Marine Society and was lost to fire in 1876.

HMS <i>Malabar</i> (1818) Ship of the line of the Royal Navy

HMS Malabar was a 74-gun third-rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy, launched on 28 December 1818 at Bombay Dockyard.

HMS <i>Superb</i> (1842) Vanguard-class ship of the line

HMS Superb was a 80-gun second rate Vanguard-class ship of the line built for the Royal Navy in the 1840s. She was broken up in 1869.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">William Symonds</span> British Navy surveyor

Sir William Symonds CB FRS was Surveyor of the Navy in the Royal Navy from 9 June 1832 to October 1847, and took part in the naval reforms instituted by the Whig First Lord of the Admiralty Sir James Robert George Graham in 1832.

HMS <i>Avenger</i> (1845) Frigate of the Royal Navy

HMS Avenger was a wooden paddle wheel frigate of the Royal Navy launched in 1845 and wrecked with heavy loss of life in 1847.

HMS <i>Fisgard</i> (1819) Frigate of the Royal Navy

HMS Fisgard was a 46-gun fifth rate Leda-class frigate of the Royal Navy. She spent sixty years in service on a variety of duties.

HMS Andromeda was a 28-gun Enterprise-class sixth-rate frigate of the Royal Navy. Andromeda was first Royal Navy ship commissioned by that name, in September 1777 under the command of Captain Henry Byrne. On 30 May 1778 she captured and burned American privateer brig Angelica at sea while transporting General Sir William Howe back to England. It sank off Martinique in the Great Hurricane of 1780 on 11 October 1780, killing all of the crew.

HMS <i>Arethusa</i> (1849) Frigate of the Royal Navy

HMS Arethusa was a 50-gun fourth-rate sailing frigate of the Royal Navy launched in 1849 from the Pembroke Dockyard. The fourth naval ship to bear the name, she served in the Crimean War and then in 1861 was converted to a steam screw frigate. Decommissioned in 1874, Arethusa became a school and training ship on the River Thames, preparing young boys for maritime careers, until she was broken up in 1934.

HMS <i>Kestrel</i> (1898) Destroyer of the Royal Navy

HMS Kestrel was a Clydebank-built three funnelled 30-knot destroyer ordered by the Royal Navy under the 1895 – 1896 Naval Estimates. She was the fourth ship to carry this name since it was first used in 1846 for a brigantine.

HMS <i>Triton</i> (1796) Experimental frigate of the Royal Navy in service 1796–1814/20

HMS Triton was a 32-gun fifth-rate frigate of the Royal Navy designed by James Gambier and launched in 1796 at Deptford. Triton was an experimental ship and the only one built to that design; she was constructed out of fir due to wartime supply shortages of more traditional materials and had some unusual features such as no tumblehome. Her namesake was the Greek god Triton, a god of the sea. She was commissioned in June 1796 under Captain John Gore, with whom she would spend the majority of her active service, to serve in the Channel in the squadron of Sir John Warren.

<i>Aigle</i>-class frigate Frigate class of the Royal Navy

Aigle-class frigates were 36-gun sailing frigates of the fifth rate designed by Surveyor of the Navy, Sir John Henslow for the Royal Navy. Only two were built: HMS Aigle and HMS Resistance. Aigle was ordered first on 15 September 1798 but a 16-month delay during her construction meant that Resistance was completed and launched first on 29 April 1801.

References

  1. Mariner's pp 64–68
  2. Reports from Committees: Eighteen volumes. -(15. part II.)- Navy, Army and Ordnance Estimates: Part II (Report). London: House of Commons. 1848. p. 859.
  3. Brock p26
  4. Sharp p698
  5. Akrigg p54
  6. Gough p46
  7. Akrigg p52
  8. Rankine p445
  9. Gardiner p174
  10. The Race p90
  11. times and gazette p467

Bibliography