HMS Resolution (1758)

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Bataille-Cardinaux.jpg
Battle of Quiberon Bay: the Day After (Richard Wright, 1760) Resolution is on her starboard side in the foreground
History
Naval Ensign of Great Britain (1707-1800).svg Great Britain
NameHMS Resolution
Ordered24 November 1755
BuilderHenry Bird, Northam, Southampton
Laid downDecember 1755
Launched14 December 1758
Commissioned23 March 1759
FateWrecked, 20 November 1759 during Battle of Quiberon
Notes
General characteristics [1]
Class & type Dublin-class ship of the line
Tons burthen15695⁄94 (bm)
Length165 ft 6 in (50.44 m) (gundeck)
Beam46 ft 6 in (14.17 m)
Depth of hold19 ft 9 in (6.02 m)
PropulsionSails
Sail plan Full-rigged ship
Armament
  • 74 guns:
  • Gundeck: 28 × 32 pdrs
  • Upper gundeck: 28 × 18 pdrs
  • Quarterdeck: 14 × 9 pdrs
  • Forecastle: 4 × 9 pdrs

HMS Resolution was a 74-gun third-rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy, launched on 14 December 1758 at Northam, near Southampton. [1]

Contents

Design and construction

On 24 November 1755 the Navy Board were instructed to build a new 70-gun ship by contract "in the neighbourhood of Portsmouth, by the same draught as those lately ordered" (the Dublin class). [2] Soon after, the Dublin class ships were officially increased from 70 guns to 74 guns, reflecting the actual number of guns they were to carry. On 3 December, a contract was agreed with shipbuilders Henry Bird & Co to build this ship at a contract price of £16 per ton (totaling £24,750.16.0d for 1,54687⁄94 tons (bm). [3] Work began later that month, the ship was launched at Northam on 14 December 1858 and taken to Portsmouth Dockyard, where she was completed and fitted out on 23 March 1759 at an additional cost of £8,505.15.1d. [4]

Service and loss

The ship was commissioned on 9 February 1759 under Captain Francis Geary. On 21 May, Geary was made a Commodore and then, two weeks later on 4 June, he was promoted to Rear-Admiral, and Captain Richard Norbury was placed in command of the ship under him on 5th June. On 7 July 1759 both Geary and Norbury left the ship, which was now given to the command of Captain Henry Speke.

On 20 November the same year, the Resolution took part in the decisive Battle of Quiberon Bay, still under the command of Speke. Just before 4pm she took the surrender of the French ship Formidable. [5] With a full westerly gale blowing throughout the battle, the Resolution (which had suffered damage to her rigging in the contest, attempted to tack in very restricted waters in order to leave the bay, but missed stays and ran onto the Fours sandbank, the position of which she was unsure. Early the next morning she floated off at high water but could not get free of the sandbanks and grounded again at the ebb tide. The timbers had been badly strained, and the ship filled, settled and sank. [6]

Satellite image of the shoals of Quiberon Bay Baie de Quiberon.png
Satellite image of the shoals of Quiberon Bay

Notes

  1. 1 2 Lavery, Brian (1983), The Ship of the Line, vol. 1, Conway Maritime Press, p.176.
  2. ↑ Public Records Office, ADM 106/4511.
  3. ↑ The contract was awarded to Henry Bird, Snr, who owned a shipbuilding site at Rotherhithe; Henry Snr then gave the contract to his son, also named Henry Bird, who chose the Northam site for the construction; she was the largest ship built at Northam up to that date.
  4. ↑ Winfield, Rif (2007), British Warships in the Age of Sail, 1714-1792, Seaforth Publishing, p.59.
  5. ↑ Corbett, Julian S. (1907), England In The Seven Years War vol II, Longmans Green, p. 66-67
  6. ↑ Hepper, David (2023), British Warship Losses in the Age of Sail 1649-1860, Seaforth Publishing p.104.

References


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