HMS Forward (1805)

Last updated

History
Naval Ensign of the United Kingdom.svgUnited Kingdom
NameHMS Forward
OrderedJune 1804
BuilderJoseph Todd, Berwick
Laid downJuly 1804
Launched4 January 1805
CommissionedNovember 1804
FateSold 14 December 1815
General characteristics [1]
Class and type Archer-class gun-brig
Tons burthen17830⁄94 bm
Length
  • 80 ft 0 in (24.38 m) (gundeck)
  • 65 ft 10+1⁄4 in (20.072 m) (gundeck)
Beam22 ft 6+3⁄4 in (6.877 m)
Depth of hold9 ft 5 in (2.87 m)
Sail plan Brig
Complement50
Armament10 × 18-pounder carronades + 2 × chase guns

HMS Forward was a 12-gun gun-brig of the Archer class of the British Royal Navy.

Contents

History

In December 1804 Lieutenant Daniel Shiels commissioned Forward for the Channel. [1]

On 7 February 1806 Forward was some six or seven leagues off Dunnose, Isle of Wight when she sighted and gave chase to a French privateer lugger. After a chase of half-an-hour and some firing, the lugger struck. She was Rancune, Captain Foliot, of Cherbourg and 12 hours out of there, having taken nothing. She was pierced for 12 guns but had only four mounted; she also carried swivel guns and small arms. Two of her crew had been wounded, one dangerously. [2]

On 17 April 1807 forward, Lieutenant Shiels, captured the Danish ship Sylt. [lower-alpha 1]

In 1807 Lieutenant Richard Welsh replaced Shiels, but then in 1808 Shiels returned to command. [1]

On 23 April 1808, during the Gunboat War, Forward towed three boats from Daphne and two from Tartarus in an attack on ten laden vessels moored at Fladstrand in Denmark. Despite coming under artillery and musket fire from a fortification, the British successfully spirited away the vessels, with five men wounded in the action. [4]

On 2 July 1809, Forward, Lieutenant Shiels, captured the Danish fishing vessel De Hoop. [5]

On 26 September 1809, Forward captured Jomfrue Sinneve Christiene, L.F. Grave, master. [6]

On 1 October, Forward captured Elizabeth, Hans Olsen, master. [7] [6]

On 5 October Forward captured Stadt Odense, S. Pederson, master. [6]

Circa May 1810, Lieutenant Richard Bankes transferred from the hired armed cutter Duke of York to Forward, on the Leith station. [8]

On 19 November 1811 Forward, commanded by Bankes, captured the merchant vessel Fortuna. [9] [10]

During the War of 1812, Forward was present off the Gulf Coast. Forward and a transport were the last remaining vessels in the vicinity of the British post at Prospect Bluff. On 16 May they evacuated the last of the garrison there. Edward Nicolls, Woodbine, and the Redstick Creek leader Josiah Francis, arrived at Amelia Island, in East Florida on 7 June 1815, where rumours circulated that the officers were seeking either to obtain British possession of Florida from Spain, or at least to arm and supply the Florida factions resisting American territorial expansion. [11] (In fact, Nicolls had been heading to the Bahamas, and had unintentionally ended up in Florida. [12] ) Forward arrived in Bermuda, and disembarked her passengers on 28 June. Edward Nicolls embarked on the Forward on 29 June 'for passage to England', and disembarked at Portsmouth on 13 September 1815.

Fate

The "Principal Officers and Commissioners of His Majesty's Navy" offered the "Gun-brig Forward, of 179 tons", "lying at Woolwich" for sale on 14 December 1815. [13] Forward was sold on that day for £600 for breaking up. [1]

Notes

  1. ↑ A seaman's share of the prize money was worth £5 9s 6d. [3]

Citations

  1. 1 2 3 4 Winfield (2008), p. 342.
  2. ↑ "No. 15897". The London Gazette . 8 March 1806. p. 313.
  3. ↑ "No. 16122". The London Gazette . 23 February 1808. p. 289.
  4. ↑ The Naval History of Great Britain. Vol. 5. London: Harding, Lepard & Co. 1826. p. 45.
  5. ↑ "No. 16384". The London Gazette . 3 July 1810. p. 990.
  6. 1 2 3 "No. 16375". The London Gazette . 2 June 1810. p. 811.
  7. ↑ "No. 16374". The London Gazette . 29 May 1810. p. 793.
  8. ↑ "LONDON, MAY 22." 26 May 1810 Jackson's Oxford Journal (Oxford, England) Issue: 2978.
  9. ↑ "No. 16688". The London Gazette . 2 January 1813. p. 36.
  10. ↑ "No. 16691". The London Gazette . 12 January 1813. p. 93.
  11. ↑ "War Events". Niles' Weekly Register. Vol. 8. 15 July 1815. p. 347. It is proper your excellency [the Governor of Georgia] should know that on the 7th inst. a brig and transport arrived at Amelia Island, with col. Nichols[sic], Captain Woodbine, an Indian Chief, and his son.
  12. ↑ Letter from Nicolls to Anthony St. John Baker, HM Chargé D'Affaires, Washington dated 12 June 1815, written at Amelia Island. This is within WO 1/143 folios 168-169, commencing on page 118 of 143 which can be downloaded for a fee from the UK National Archives website 'I had intended to write to you from the Bahamas ... but being obliged to put in here in distress'
  13. ↑ "No. 17091". The London Gazette . 16 December 1815. p. 2506.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gunboat War</span> 1807–1814 war between Denmark–Norway and the United Kingdom

The Gunboat War was a naval conflict between Denmark–Norway and Great Britain supported by Sweden during the Napoleonic Wars. The war's name is derived from the Danish tactic of employing small gunboats against the materially superior Royal Navy. In Scandinavia it is seen as the later stage of the English Wars, whose commencement is accounted as the First Battle of Copenhagen in 1801.

HMS <i>Oberon</i> (1805) Brig-sloop of the Royal Navy

HMS Oberon was a 16-gun brig-sloop of the Seagull class built at Kingston upon Hull and launched in 1805. She was constructed at the James Shepheard Shipyard, Sutton.

HMS <i>Ringdove</i> (1806) British brig-sloop (1806–1829)

HMS Ringdove was a Royal Navy 18-gun Cruizer-class brig-sloop that Matthew Warren built at Brightlingsea and launched in 1806. She took some prizes and participated in three actions or campaigns that qualified her crew for clasps to the Naval General Service Medal. The Admiralty sold her in 1829 to Samuel Cunard, who would go on to found the Cunard Line.

HMS Olympia was an Adonis-class schooner of the Royal Navy during the Napoleonic War. She was built at Bermuda using Bermudan cedar and completed in 1806. In March 1811 the French captured her, but the British recaptured her in October. During her career, she served as far afield as Buenos Aires, Île Bourbon, and Cape of Good Hope. The Admiralty sold her in 1815.

HMS Bold was a 14-gun Archer-class gun-brig of the Royal Navy built at Blackwall Yard. She took part in several minor actions and captured some prizes before she grounded in 1811 and was broken up shortly thereafter.

HMS <i>Sappho</i> (1806) Brig-sloop of the Royal Navy

HMS Sappho was a Cruizer class brig-sloop built by Jabez Bailey at Ipswich and launched in 1806. She defeated the Danish brig Admiral Yawl in a single-ship action during the Gunboat War, and then had a notably successful two months of prize-taking in the first year of the War of 1812. She was wrecked in 1825 off the Canadian coast and then broken up in 1830.

HMS Snapper was a Royal Navy Ballahoo-class schooner of four 12-pounder carronades and a crew of 20. The prime contractor for the vessel was Goodrich & Co., in Bermuda, and she was launched in 1804. She cruised for some seven years, sharing in several captures of merchant vessels and taking some herself, before a French privateer captured her.

During the period of the Napoleonic Wars, two vessels have served the British Royal Navy as His Majesty's Hired armed cutter Idas, named for Idas, a figure from Greek mythology.

HMS <i>Cruizer</i> (1797) Sloop of the Royal Navy

HMS Cruizer was a Royal Navy Cruizer-class brig-sloop built by Stephen Teague of Ipswich and launched in 1797. She was the first ship of the class, but there was a gap of 5 years between her launch and the ordering of the next batch in October 1803; by 1815 a total of 105 other vessels had been ordered to her design. She had an eventful wartime career, mostly in the North Sea, English Channel and the Baltic, and captured some 15 privateers and warships, and many merchant vessels. She also participated in several actions. She was laid up in 1813 and the Commissioners of the Navy sold her for breaking in 1819.

HMS <i>Piercer</i> (1804) Brig-sloop of the Royal Navy

HMS Piercer was a Royal Navy Archer-class gun-brig launched in 1804. She served against the French, Danes and Dutch in the Napoleonic Wars and was assigned to the Downs station. She participated in a number of operations in the Bay of Biscay, the English Channel, and the North Sea. In 1814 the British government transferred Piercer to the Kingdom of Hanover for use as a guard ship. Hanover decommissioned her in 1850.

French brig <i>Voltigeur</i> (1804)

The French brig Voltigeur was a Palinure-class brig launched in 1804. The British captured her in 1806 and renamed her HMS Pelican. She was sold in 1812.

HMS Barbara was an Adonis class schooner of the Royal Navy and launched in 1806. A French privateer captured her in 1807 and she became the French privateer Pératy. The Royal Navy recaptured her in 1808. She was paid off in June 1814 and sold in February 1815.

HMS Sylvia was an Adonis-class schooner of the Royal Navy during the Napoleonic War. She was built at Bermuda using Bermudan cedar and completed in 1806. She took part in one notable single-ship action in the East Indies in 1810. The Navy sold her in 1816 and she then became a merchantman. She was wrecked in 1823 on a voyage to West Africa.

HMS Patriot was a Dutch schuyt that the Royal Navy captured in 1808 and took into service. She captured several enemy vessels before she was converted to a water vessel in 1813. The Admiralty sold her in 1815.

HMS <i>Orestes</i> (1805) Brig-sloop of the Royal Navy

HMS Orestes was a 16-gun brig-sloop of the Seagull class of the British Royal Navy, launched in October 1805. She served during the Napoleonic Wars, primarily in the North Sea and the Channel, where she captured three privateers. The Navy sold her in 1817.

During the period of the Napoleonic Wars, the British Royal Navy twice employed a vessel named His Majesty's hired armed cutter Albion, though these are probably the same vessel:

HMS Earnest was launched at Leith in 1805 as one of 48 later Archer-class gun brigs for the British Royal Navy. During her naval career Earnest captured five small privateers and numerous merchant vessels. In 1816 the Admiralty sold her and she became the merchantman Earnest. She continued to sail and was last listed in 1850.

HMS <i>Monkey</i> (1801) Brig of the Royal Navy

HMS Monkey was launched in 1801 at Rochester. She served in the Channel, North Sea, and the Baltic, and was wrecked in December 1810.

HMS Cracker was a later Archer-class gun brig, launched in 1804. She participated in several actions and captured two small French privateers. She was sold for breaking up in 1816.

HMS Richmond was a Confounder-class gunbrig, launched at Itchenor in February 1806. She captured several small privateers and merchantmen off the Iberian peninsula before the Royal Navy sold her in 1814. After the Navy sold her, she became the mercantile Ben Jonson.

References

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.