![]() | This article includes a list of general references, but it lacks sufficient corresponding inline citations .(July 2019) |
![]() H.M.S. Royal Albert 131 Guns, 1856, Lithograph T.G.Dutton, after Oswald Walters Brierly | |
History | |
---|---|
![]() | |
Name | HMS Royal Albert |
Ordered |
|
Builder | Woolwich Dockyard |
Laid down | August 1844 |
Launched | 13 May 1854 |
Completed | By 19 November 1854 |
Decommissioned | 1861 |
Fate | Sold to Castle for Breaking up, September 1884 |
General characteristics As sailing ship | |
Tons burthen |
|
Length |
|
Beam | 60 ft 10 in (18.54 m) |
Depth of hold | 25 ft (7.6 m) |
Sail plan | Full-rigged ship |
Complement | 1000 |
Armament |
|
General characteristics After conversion | |
Displacement | 5,517 tons |
Tons burthen | 3,726 26/94 bm |
Length |
|
Beam | 61 ft (19 m) |
Draught |
|
Depth of hold | 24 ft 2 in (7.37 m) |
Propulsion |
|
Sail plan | Full-rigged ship |
Speed | 10 knots (under steam) |
Complement | 1,050 |
Armament |
|
HMS Royal Albert was a 121 gun three-decker ship of the Royal Navy launched in 1854 at Woolwich Dockyard. She had originally been designed as a sailing ship but was converted to screw propulsion while still under construction.
Lithographs of the launch at Woolwich, 13 May 1854 of HMS Royal Albert screw steamer, claim she had 121 guns and was fitted with screw propellers by John Penn & Sons of Greenwich. [1]
From commissioning at Sheerness she was first commanded by Commander Alexander Little between June and October 1854. From October to November 1854 by Captain Thomas Sabine Pasley while still at Sheerness.
From 14 February 1855 to April 1857 she was commanded by Captain William Robert Mends as flagship to Rear-Admiral Edmund Lyons commanding the Mediterranean fleet, then chiefly concerned with the Crimean War.[ citation needed ] In late December 1855, she sprang a leak whilst on a voyage from the Crimea to Malta and was beached at San Nicholas, Kea, Greece. [2] She was subsequently refloated and taken in to Malta for repairs. [3] From April 1857 to 20 August 1858 she was commanded by Captain Francis Egerton.
From 25 August 1858 to October 1859 she was commanded by Captain Edward Bridges Rice as part of the Channel Squadron under Rear-Admiral Charles Fremantle. She received a new captain on 1 October 1859, Captain Henry James Lacon, who remained up to her paying off at Plymouth on 25 January 1861. Rear-Admiral Robert Fanshawe took over the Channel Squadron from 10 October 1860. In 1884 she was sold for breaking up at Charlton.
HMS Gorgon was a wooden steam paddle sloop of 6 guns, launched in 1837. In 1840 she took part in the bombardment of Acre, and in 1843 was part of the Royal Navy squadron stationed in the River Plate during the Uruguayan Civil War. She was converted to a troopship and in 1858 assisted Agamemnon in the laying of the first transatlantic telegraph cable. She was sold for breaking in 1864.
HMS Rattler was a 9-gun steam screw sloop of the Royal Navy, and one of the first British warships to be completed with screw propulsion. She was originally ordered as a paddle wheel 4-gun steam vessel from Sheerness Dockyard on 12 March 1841. She was reordered on 24 February 1842 as a propeller type 9-gun sloop from HM Royal Dockyard, Sheerness, as a new vessel. William Symonds had redesigned the ship as a screw propeller driven vessel.
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 Miranda was a 14-gun wooden screw sloop of the Royal Navy. As part of the 1847 Program, she was designed by John Fincham, Master Shipwright of Portsmouth ,and is considered an improved Rattler, with the design approved on 3 November 1847. She was ordered on 25 April 1847 with the name Grinder from Royal Dockyard, Sheerness. On 3 November 1847, she was reordered as Miranda from Sheerness Dockyard. Launched in 1851, she was completed to see action in the Crimean War. In 1854 she was in the White Sea and participated in the bombardment of the Port of Kola. She then served in the Sea of Azov during 1855. Two of her crew were awarded the Victoria Cross for their bravery. Towards the end of her career she transported troops during the New Zealand Wars. She was reclassified as a corvette by 1862. She was sold for breaking in December 1869.
HMS Wellesley was a 74-gun third rate, named after the Duke of Wellington, and launched in 1815. She captured Karachi for the British, and participated in the First Opium War, which resulted in Britain gaining control of Hong Kong. Thereafter she served primarily as a training ship before gaining the almost surely unwanted distinction of being the last British ship of the line to be sunk by enemy action and the only one to have been sunk by an air-raid.
HMS Nile was a two-deck 90-gun second-rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy, launched on 28 June 1839 at Plymouth Dockyard. She was named to commemorate the Battle of the Nile in 1798. After service in the Baltic Sea and the North America and West Indies Station, she was converted to a training ship and renamed HMS Conway, surviving in that role until 1953.
HMS Sutlej was a Constance-class 50-gun fourth-rate frigate of the Royal Navy.
HMS Castor, launched and commissioned in 1832, was a 36-gun fifth rate frigate of the Royal Navy and the third naval ship to bear the name.
HMS Sans Pareil was a 70-gun screw propelled ship of the line of the Royal Navy.
HMS Amphion was a 36-gun wooden hulled screw frigate of the Royal Navy. She was initially ordered as a sail powered ship, but later reordered as a prototype screw frigate conversion.
HMS Niger was originally slated to be built as a Sampson designed sloop; however, she was ordered as a First-Class sloop with screw propulsion on 20 February 1845 to be built at Woolwich Dockyard, along the design developed by Oliver Lang and with a hull like the Basilisk designed paddle sloops. Her armament and engine were to be like the Encounter Design building at Pembroke. A second vessel (Florentia) was ordered on 26 March 1846 but after her keel was laid at Pembroke Dockyard, her construction was suspended on 6 October 1846 then cancelled three years later, on 22 May 1849. Niger She conducted important propulsion trials, finally proving the superiority of screw propulsion and served in West Africa, the Crimea, China, the East Indies and Australia. She took part in the New Zealand wars in 1860 and was sold for breaking in 1869.
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 Phoenix was a 6-gun steam paddle vessel of the Royal Navy, built in a dry dock at Chatham in 1832. She was reclassified as a second-class paddle sloop before being rebuilt as a 10-gun screw sloop in 1844–45. She was fitted as an Arctic storeship in 1851 and sold for breaking in 1864.
HMS Winchester was a 60-gun Southampton-class sailing frigate of the Royal Navy. She was laid down in 1816 at Woolwich Dockyard, and launched on 21 June 1822. Although designed for 60 guns, she and the rest of her class carried 52 guns. From 1831 to 1861 she served in North America and Southeast Asia. In 1861 she became the training ship Conway at Liverpool, and from 1876 she was the training ship Mount Edgcumbe. She was sold in 1921.
HMS Malacca was a 17-gun wooden sloop of the Royal Navy. She was ordered on 9 November 1847 from Moulmein, Burma to be built of teak. As a Surveyor's Department design, Malacca was based on the Conflict designed sloop which was approved on 9 December 1848. After launching in April 1853 she was commissioned the following month to be sailed to England for the fitting of her engine. She entered British Naval service in 1854 and served three commissions including action in the Russian War 1854 - 55 before being sold in 1869. Her resale to Japan, she served in the Japanese Navy as a training ship until broken in 1906.
HMS Archer was initially ordered as one of two Rifleman type gunvessels on 25 April 1846. With her construction suspended in September 1846, she was reordered on as a sloop on 25 April 1847 to be constructed to a design of John Edye as approved on 25 August. With the exception of two years on Baltic service during the Russian War of 1854 to 1855 she spent the majority on the West Coast of Africa on the anti-slavery patrol. This service involved anti-slavery work on the coasts of the Bight of Benin, and was notoriously unhealthy, with tropical diseases taking a heavy toll of British seamen. One of her commanders died and three others were invalided. Archer was reclassified as a corvette in 1862. She finally returned to Home waters, being sold for breaking in January 1866
HMS Wasp was an Archer type sloop ordered on 25 April 1847 from Deptford Dockyard. Two references stipulate that Parthian, ordered with Archer the year prior was renamed Wasp when ordered as a sloop. However, Parthian remained on the books at Deptford, as a Rifleman type gunvessel until cancelled in June 1849. Therefore Wasp was a new build. She served on many different stations during her career, including West Coast of Africa, in the Mediterranean and Black Sea during the Russian War of 1854 - 55, on the South East Coast of America, Cape of Good Hope where she went aground twice and the East Indies before being sold for breaking in December 1869.
HMS Vesuvius was initially a Steam Vessel second class designed by Sir William Symonds, Surveyor of the Navy, and built at Sheerness. She was commissioned and participated in the bombardment of Acre in 1840, during the Russian War she was in the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov in 1855. Her last overseas posting was in the West Indies. She was sold for breaking in June 1865.
HMS Prometheus was an Alecto-class sloop designed by Sir William Symonds, Surveyor of the Navy. Originally classed as a steam vessel (SV3), her classification would be changed to a Third Class Sloop. She initially served mainly on the west coast of Africa on the anti-slavery patrol except for a brief period on particular service in the Black Sea in late 1855. She was sold on 5 March 1863 for breaking.
HMS Polyphemus was an Alecto-class sloop designed by Sir William Symonds, Surveyor of the Navy. Originally classed as a steam vessel (SV3), her classification would be changed to a Third Class Sloop. She initially served in the Mediterranean, west coast of Africa and the Baltic. She was wrecked on the Baltic side Jutland on 29 January 1856.