Woolwich Dockyard was an English naval dockyard along the river Thames at Woolwich in north-west Kent, where many ships were built from the early 16th century until the late 19th century. William Camden called it 'the Mother Dock of all England'. By virtue of the size and quantity of vessels built there, Woolwich Dockyard is described as having been 'among the most important shipyards of seventeenth-century Europe'. During the Age of Sail, the yard continued to be used for shipbuilding and repair work more or less consistently; in the 1830s a specialist factory within the dockyard oversaw the introduction of steam power for ships of the Royal Navy. At its largest extent it filled a 56-acre site north of Woolwich Church Street, between Warspite Road and New Ferry Approach; 19th-century naval vessels were fast outgrowing the yard, however, and it eventually closed in 1869. The former dockyard area is now partly residential, partly industrial, with remnants of its historic past having been restored.
HMS Vanguard was a 90-gun second-rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy, built at Portsmouth Dockyard and launched in 1678.
HMS Queen was a 110-gun first-rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy, launched on 15 May 1839 at Portsmouth. She was the last purely sailing built battleship to be ordered. Subsequent ones were ordered with both sails and steam engines. All British battleships were constructed with sailing rig until the 1870s. HMS Queen had an auxiliary steam engine fitted in late 1850s. She was broken up in 1871.
HMS Royal Katherine was an 84-gun full-rigged second-rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy, launched in 1664 at Woolwich Dockyard. Her launching was conducted by Charles II and attended by Samuel Pepys. Royal Katherine fought in both the Second and Third Anglo-Dutch Wars and afterwards, the War of the Grand Alliance before entering the dockyard at Portsmouth for rebuilding in 1702. In this rebuilding, she was upgraded to carry more guns, 90 in total, and served in the War of the Spanish Succession during which she was renamed Ramillies in honour of John Churchill's victory at the Battle of Ramillies. She was rebuilt again in 1742–3 before serving as the flagship of the ill-fated Admiral John Byng in the Seven Years' War. Ramillies was wrecked at Bolt Tail near Hope Cove on 15 February 1760.
HMS Royal Oak was a 74-gun third-rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy, built by Jonas Shish at Deptford and launched in 1674. She was one of only three Royal Navy ships to be equipped with the Rupertinoe naval gun. Life aboard her when cruising in the Mediterranean Sea in 1679 is described in the diary of Henry Teonge.
HMS Agamemnon was a Royal Navy 91-gun battleship ordered by the Admiralty in 1849, in response to the perceived threat from France by their possession of ships of the Napoléon class.
Six ships and a shore establishment of the Royal Navy have been named HMS Hannibal after the Carthaginian leader Hannibal:
HMS Duke was a 90-gun second-rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy, launched on 13 June 1682 at Woolwich Dockyard.
HMS Waterloo was an 80-gun third-rate ship of the line, launched on 16 October 1818 at Portsmouth. She was designed by Henry Peake, and built by Nicholas Diddams at Portsmouth Dockyard and was the only ship built to her draught. She had originally been ordered as HMS Talavera, but was renamed on the stocks after the Battle of Waterloo.
The Albion-class ships of the line were a class of two-deck 90-gun second rates, designed for the Royal Navy by Sir William Symonds. The first two were originally ordered in March 1840 as 80-gun ships of the Vanguard class, but were re-ordered to a new design of 90 guns some three months later. Three more ships to this design were ordered in March 1840, but two of these were re-ordered to fresh designs in 1847.
HMS Charles was a 96-gun first-rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy, built by Christopher Pett at Deptford Dockyard until his death in March 1668, then completed by Jonas Shish after being launched in the same month. Her name was formally Charles the Second, but she was known simply as Charles, particularly after 1673 when the contemporary Royal Charles was launched.
HMS Falkland was a 50-gun fourth-rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy, built by Holland of New Castle, New Hampshire, and purchased by the navy in 1696.
HMS Namur was a 90-gun second rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy, launched at Woolwich Dockyard in 1697.
HMS Exmouth was a 91-gun screw propelled Albion-class second-rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy.
HMS Gloucester was a 50-gun fourth rate ship of the line built for the Royal Navy in the 1740s. She participated in the 1740–48 War of the Austrian Succession, capturing four French privateers. The ship was broken up in 1764.
The Conqueror-class ships of the line were a class of two 101-gun first rate screw propelled ships designed by the Surveyor’s Department for the Royal Navy.
HMS James Watt was a 91-gun steam and sail-powered second rate ship of the line. She had originally been ordered as one of a two ship class, with her sister HMS Cressy, under the name HMS Audacious. She was renamed on 18 November 1847 in honour of James Watt, the purported inventor of the steam engine. She was the only Royal Navy ship to bear this name. Both ships were reordered as screw propelled ships, James Watt in 1849, and Cressy in 1852. James Watt became one of the four-ship Agamemnon-class of ships of the line. They were initially planned as 80-gun ships, but the first two ships built to the design, HMS Agamemnon and James Watt, were rerated on 26 March 1851 to 91 guns ships, later followed by the remainder of the class.
HMS Merlin was the name ship of her class of three 2-gun paddle packet boats built for the Royal Navy during the 1830s. She was converted into a survey ship in 1854 and then into a gunvessel two years later. The ship was decommissioned in 1858 and was sold into commercial service in 1863.
HMS Seringapatam was a 46-gun Seringapatam-class fifth-rate frigate built for the Royal Navy between 1817 and 1821, the name ship of her class.
The English ship Merlin was a 14-gun sixth rate vessel built under the 1651 Programme at Chatham Dockyard for the Commonwealth of England in 1651/52. She sailed with Robert Blakes Fleet during her career in the Commonwealth Navy. She partook in the Battles of Portland, the Gabbard, Scheveningen and Porto Fina. She was incorporated into the Royal Navy as HMS Merlin in May 1660. She continued her duties in trade protection and convoy escort. She was taken by the Dutch off Cadiz, Spain defending her convoy in October 1665.
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