HMS Galatea (1810)

Last updated

History
Naval Ensign of the United Kingdom.svg United Kingdom
NameHMS Galatea
Ordered12 May 1809
Builder Deptford Dockyard
Laid downAugust 1809
Launched31 August 1810
CommissionedSeptember 1810
ReclassifiedUsed as a coal hulk from August 1836
Honours and
awards		 Naval General Service Medal with clasp "Off Tamatave 20 May 1811"
FateBroken up in 1849
General characteristics as built
Class and type36-gun Apollo-class frigate
Tons burthen94730⁄94 (bm)
Length
  • 145 ft (44.2 m) (gundeck)
  • 121 ft 8+3⁄4 in (37.1 m) (keel)
Beam38 ft 3 in (11.7 m)
Depth of hold13 ft 3+1⁄2 in (4.1 m)
Sail plan Full-rigged ship
Complement264
Armament
  • Upper deck: 26 × 18-pounder guns
  • QD: 2 × 9-pounder guns + 10 × 32-pounder carronades
  • Fc: 2 × 9-pounder guns + 4 × 32-pounder carronades
Plan of an Apollo-class frigate dated 1803 EURYALUS 1803 RMG J5673.jpg
Plan of an Apollo-class frigate dated 1803

HMS Galatea was an Apollo-class fifth rate of the Royal Navy. The frigate was built at Deptford Dockyard, London, England and launched on 31 August 1810. In 1811 she participated in the Battle of Tamatave, which battle confirmed British dominance of the seas east of the Cape of Good Hope for the rest of the Napoleonic Wars. She was hulked in 1836 and broken up in 1849.

Contents

Napoleonic Wars

Galatea was commissioned in September 1810 under Captain Woodley Losack, who would remain her captain until 1815. He sailed her to the Cape of Good Hope on 31 December 1810. [1]

On 6 May 1811, a French squadron of frigates under the command of Commodore François Roquebert in Renommée approached Grand Port, not realizing that Isle de France (now Mauritius) had fallen to the British. The French squadron escaped an encounter with an equivalent British squadron under Captain Charles Marsh Schomberg of Astraea. [2]

Between 7 and 9 May the frigates Galatea and Phoebe, under James Hillyar, and the brig-sloop Racehorse, sighted the French 40-gun frigates Renommée, Clorinde and Néréide off the Isle de France, whilst Astraea was lying in Port Louis. [2]

Battle of Tamatave (Action of 20 May 1811) Battle of tamatave.jpg
Battle of Tamatave (Action of 20 May 1811)

On 14 May Astraea, Phoebe, Galatea, and Racehorse sailed from Port Louis for Tamatave, Madagascar and arrived on the 20th. The British squadron sighted the French squadron and made chase. A severe engagement, the Battle of Tamatave, ensued. During the battle, Renommée and Clorinde badly battered Galatea, with the result that she lost 16 men killed and 46 wounded – the largest number of casualties of any vessel in the squadron. [2] [lower-alpha 1] In 1847 the Admiralty authorized the award of the Naval General Service Medal with clasp "Off Tamatave 20 May 1811" to all surviving claimants from the action. [3]

The British captured Renommée. Roquebert had sacrificed his flagship and ultimately his life to allow Clorinde and the badly damaged Néréide to escape. Five days later, Schomberg's squadron rediscovered Néréide at Tamatave. The British persuaded the town's commander to surrender the town, and Néréide, without any further fight. [2]

The Royal Navy took Néréide in as Madagascar and Renommée as Java. The battle was the last action of the Mauritius campaign. Thereafter Galatea served primarily, and relatively uneventfully, as a convoy escort for the rest of war.

Galatea participated in the War of 1812.

On 27 September 1812, Galatea left St Helena, escorting three whalers: Admiral Berkley, Argo, and Frederick. Frederick separated from the other three ships on 27 October, off Ascension. On 31 October the convoy encountered USS President and USS Congress at 33°10′N20°28′W / 33.167°N 20.467°W / 33.167; -20.467 . They gave chase and Congress captured Argo, but Galatea escaped and arrived at Portsmouth. [4]

Galatea was in company with Spitfire when they recaptured the brig Fermina on 18 April 1813. [5] On 1 June 1813 she sailed for Lisbon. [1]

Post-war

In October 1815 Galatea was laid up at Portsmouth. [1] She underwent £36,187 in expenses for repairs and fitting for sea at Deptford from late 1819 to February 1826. [1]

Sir Charles Napier (1854) Admiral Sir Charles Napier.jpg
Sir Charles Napier (1854)

In August 1825 Captain Sir Charles Sullivan recommissioned Galatea and then went on to command her on the coasts of Portugal and South America until 1829. From 8 January 1829 to 28 January 1832 her commander was Captain Charles Napier who, in a letter written shortly after his appointment, described her as "a ship that has the worst reputation in the Navy". [6]

Between January and May 1829, Napier fitted her with an experimental system of his own design of paddles that the crew would work via winches on the main deck. [1] The paddles proved useful for manoeuvering at speeds of up to 3 knots in windless conditions. [6] On 12 September 1831 Galatea towed the line-of-battle ship Caledonia by means of paddles alone. [7] Between December 1829 and February 1830 she underwent a refit that cost £12,595. [1]

Twice during this period she cruised to the Caribbean, calling at Jamaica, Havana, Cuba and Tampico, Mexico. Between August and October 1830 she was sent to Lisbon to demand the restitution of British merchantmen which had been seized by the government of the Portuguese usurper Dom Miguel, and in May–July 1831 she was engaged in guarding British interests in the Azores when the forces of Dom Pedro were engaged in recovering those islands for the rightful queen, Donna Maria II. Napier quit Galatea in 1832 after she was paid off and succeeded George Sartorius as commander of Dom Pedro's navy in February 1833.

Fate

Between August and September 1836, Galatea was at Plymouth being fitted as a receiving ship and a coal depot for Jamaica. She was then moved to Jamaica in 1840. She was broken up there in 1849 following an Admiralty order dated 24 September 1849. [1]

Notes

  1. ↑ Lieutenant Hugh Peregrine of the Royal Marines and 15 men were either killed or mortally wounded; Captain Losack, Lieutenant Thomas Bevis, Lieutenant Henry Lewis, midshipmen Henry Williams and Alexander Henning, 21 men and 3 boys were all wounded. [2]

Citations

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Winfield (2008), pp. 168–9.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 "No. 16540". The London Gazette . 12 November 1811. pp. 2185–2192.
  3. ↑ "No. 20939". The London Gazette . 26 January 1849. p. 244.
  4. ↑ Lloyd's List №4720.
  5. ↑ "No. 16899". The London Gazette . 17 May 1814. p. 1041.
  6. 1 2 Napier (1862), pp. 131–132.
  7. ↑ Napier (1862), p. 152.

Related Research Articles

HMS <i>Java</i> (1811) British Royal navy frigate

HMS Java was a British Royal Navy 38-gun fifth-rate frigate. She was originally laid down in 1805 as Renommée, described as a 40-gun Pallas-class French Navy frigate, but the vessel actually carried 46 guns. The British captured her in 1811 in a noteworthy action during the Battle of Tamatave, but she is most famous for her defeat on 29 December 1812 in a three-hour single-ship action against USS Constitution. Java had a complement of about 277, but during her engagement with Constitution she allegedly had 426 aboard, in comparison with her opponent's 475.

HMS <i>Astraea</i> (1781) British Royal Navy frigate

HMS Astraea was a 32-gun fifth rate Active-class frigate of the Royal Navy. Fabian at E. Cowes launched her in 1781, and she saw action in the American War of Independence as well as during the Napoleonic Wars. She is best known for her capture of the larger French frigate Gloire in a battle on 10 April 1795, while under the command of Captain Lord Henry Paulet. She was wrecked on 23 March 1808 off the coast of Anegada in the British Virgin Islands.

HMS <i>Phoebe</i> (1795) Frigate of the Royal Navy

HMS Phoebe was a 36-gun fifth rate of the Royal Navy. She had a career of almost twenty years and fought in the French Revolutionary Wars, the Napoleonic Wars and the War of 1812. Overall, her crews were awarded six clasps to the Naval General Service Medals, with two taking place in the French Revolutionary Wars, three during the Napoleonic Wars and the sixth in the War of 1812. Three of the clasps carried the name Phoebe. During her career, Phoebe sailed to the Mediterranean and Baltic seas, the Indian Ocean, South East Asia, North and South America.

Captain Sir Charles Marsh Schomberg was an officer of the British Royal Navy, who served during French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, and later served as Lieutenant-Governor of Dominica.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mauritius campaign of 1809–1811</span> Amphibious and naval operations by the British during the Napoleonic Wars

The Mauritius campaign of 1809–1811 was a series of amphibious operations and naval actions fought to determine possession of the French Indian Ocean territories of Isle de France and Île Bonaparte during the Napoleonic Wars. The campaign lasted from the spring of 1809 until the spring of 1811, and saw both the Royal Navy and the French Navy deploy substantial frigate squadrons with the intention of disrupting or protecting trade from British India. In a war in which the Royal Navy was almost universally dominant at sea, the campaign is especially notable for the local superiority enjoyed by the French Navy in the autumn of 1810 following the British disaster at the Battle of Grand Port, the most significant defeat for the Royal Navy in the entire conflict. After their victory, the British used the original Dutch name of Mauritius for Isle de France. In 1814, Île Bonaparte was returned to France, who eventually renamed it La Réunion.

French frigate <i>Magicienne</i> (1778)

Magicienne was a frigate of the French Navy, lead ship of her class. The British captured her in 1781 and she served with the Royal Navy until her crew burned her in 1810 to prevent her capture after she grounded at Isle de France. During her service with the Royal Navy she captured several privateers and participated in the Battle of San Domingo.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Battle of Tamatave</span> 1811 battle fought during the Napoleonic Wars

The Battle of Tamatave was fought off Tamatave in Madagascar between British and French frigate squadrons during the Napoleonic Wars. The action was the final engagement of the Mauritius campaign of 1809–1811, and it saw the destruction of the last French attempt to reinforce their garrison on Mauritius. Although the news had not reached Europe by February 1811 when the reinforcement squadron left Brest, Mauritius had been captured in December 1810 by a British invasion fleet, the French defences hampered by the lack of the supplies and troops carried aboard the frigate squadron under the command of Commodore François Roquebert in Renommée. Roquebert's heavily laden ships reached Mauritius on 6 May and discovered that the island was in British hands the following day, narrowly escaping a trap laid by a squadron of British frigates ordered to hunt and destroy them.

French frigate <i>Clorinde</i> (1808)

Clorinde was a 40-gun Pallas-class frigate of the French Navy, designed by Sané. The British Royal Navy captured her in 1814 and renamed her HMS Aurora. After 19 years as a coal hulk she was broken up in 1851.

The Junon was a Gloire class 40-gun frigate of the French Navy. Launched in 1806, she saw service during the Napoleonic Wars, escorting merchant convoys to France's besieged Caribbean colonies. In February 1809 she was captured at sea after a fierce engagement with four Royal Navy vessels.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Invasion of Isle de France</span> 1810 British invasion of Mauritius during the Napoleonic Wars

The Invasion of Isle de France was a complicated but successful British amphibious operation in the Indian Ocean, launched in November 1810 during the Napoleonic Wars. During the operation, a substantial military force was landed by the Royal Navy at Grand Baie, on the French colony of Isle de France. Marching inland against weak French opposition, the British force was able to overwhelm the defenders in a series of minor engagements, culminating in the capture of the island's capital Port Napoleon and the surrender of Charles Decaen, the French governor. The surrender eliminated the last French territory in the Indian Ocean and among the military equipment captured were five French Navy frigates and 209 heavy cannon. Isle de France was retained by Britain at the end of the war under the name of Mauritius and remained part of the British Empire until 1968.

HMS <i>Nisus</i> (1810) Frigate of the Royal Navy

HMS Nisus was a Royal Navy 38-gun fifth rate frigate, launched in 1810 at Plymouth, named for Virgil's character Nisus from The Aeneid.

HMS <i>Eclipse</i> (1807) Brig-sloop of the Royal Navy

HMS Eclipse was a Royal Navy Cruizer-class brig-sloop built by John King at Dover and launched in 1807. She served off Portugal and then in the Indian Ocean at the capture of the Île de France. Shortly thereafter she captured Tamatave. She was sold for mercantile service in 1815. She traded with India until 1823. Then between 1823 and 1845 she made seven voyages as a whaler.

HMS <i>Racehorse</i> (1806) British naval brig-sloop (1806–1822)

HMS Racehorse was a Royal Navy 18-gun Cruizer-class brig-sloop built by Hamilton & Breeds and launched in 1806 at Hastings. She served in the English Channel, where she captured a small privateer, and in the East Indies, where she participated in the capture of Isle de France and the operations around it. She was wrecked in 1822.

HMS <i>Astraea</i> (1810) Apollo-class frigate of the Royal Navy

HMS Astraea was a Royal Navy 36-gun fifth rate Apollo-class frigate, launched- in 1810 at Northam. She participated in the Battle of Tamatave and in an inconclusive single-ship action with the French frigate Etoile. Astrea was broken up in 1851.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Roquebert's expedition to the Caribbean</span> Napoleonic war operation by French

Roquebert's expedition to the Caribbean, was an unsuccessful operation by a French naval squadron to transport supplies to Guadeloupe in December 1809 at the height of the Napoleonic Wars. Over the previous year, British Royal Navy squadrons had isolated and defeated the French Caribbean colonies one by one, until by the autumn Guadeloupe was the only colony remaining in French hands. Cut off from the rest of the world by British blockade squadrons that intercepted all ships coming to or from the island, Guadeloupe was in a desperate situation, facing economic collapse, food shortages and social upheaval, as well as the impending threat of British invasion. In an effort to reinforce and resupply the colony, the French government sent four vessels to the West Indies in November 1809 under Commodore François Roquebert. Two of the ships were 20-gun flûtes carrying supplies and troops. The two others were 40-gun frigates, ordered to protect the storeships on their journey from the British forces operating off both the French and Guadeloupe coasts.

Dominique Roquebert was a French navy officer.

Jean-François Lemaresquier was a French naval officer.

Captain Woodley Francis Losack was an officer of the British Royal Navy, who served during the French Revolutionary Wars and the Napoleonic Wars. He participated in the Battle of Tamatave (1811) as captain of HMS Galatea.

The French brig Observateur, which was launched in 1800 for the French Navy, was a Vigilant-class 16-gun brig, one of six built to a design by Pierre-Alexandre-Laurent Forfait. The Royal Navy captured her in 1806 and took her into service as HMS Observateur. She participated in two actions, one for the French Navy and one for the Royal Navy, and one campaign before she was laid up in 1810. The Navy did not succeed in selling her until 1814.

Admiral Kenelm Somerville, 17th Lord Somerville was a Royal Navy officer and Scottish hereditary peer. He joined the navy in 1801 and served throughout the Napoleonic Wars, fighting at the invasion of Isle de France, Battle of Tamatave, and invasion of Java. He was promoted to commander in 1811 and in 1813 took command of the troopship HMS Thames which he sailed to North America to fight in the War of 1812. Promoted to post-captain in 1814, he commanded a flotilla in the expedition that burned Washington. Somerville retired from the navy in 1846 and continued to be promoted on the retired list, becoming an admiral in 1862. He inherited the title of Lord Somerville from his brother in 1842 and died at Newbold Comyn in 1864 at the age of 76.

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.