HMS Shakespeare

Last updated December 26, 2021

Two ships of the Royal Navy have borne the name HMS Shakespeare, after poet and playwright William Shakespeare:

HMS Shakespeare (1917) was a Thornycroft type flotilla leader launched in 1917. She was handed over to the breakers in part-payment for RMS Majestic in 1936, and was scrapped.
HMS Shakespeare (P221) was an S-class submarine launched in 1941 and sold in 1946.

This article includes a list of ships with the same or similar names. If an internal link for a specific ship led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended ship article, if one exists.

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Five ships of the British Royal Navy have borne the name HMS Sceptre, after the sceptre, a symbol of royal authority.

Eleven ships of the Royal Navy have borne the name HMS Vanguard, meaning the forefront of an action or movement:

At least five ships and one shore establishment of the Royal Navy have been named HMS Warrior:

Six ships of the Royal Navy have been named HMS Oberon, after the fairy king Oberon from William Shakespeare's play, A Midsummer Night's Dream:

Eight ships of the Royal Navy have borne the name HMS Andromeda, after the Greek heroine Andromeda.

Four ships of the Royal Navy have been named HMS Curacoa, after the island in the Caribbean Sea more usually spelled Curaçao:

Three ships of the Royal Navy have been named HMS Cottesmore after the Cottesmore hunt:

Three ships of the Royal Navy have borne the name HMS Scott. The first ship was named after Sir Walter Scott, 1st Baronet. The later ships were named after the Antarctic explorer Robert Falcon Scott:

HMS Pegasus is the name which has been given to nine ships in the British Royal Navy. Pegasus was a winged horse in Greek mythology. These ships included:

William Shakespeare (1564–1616) was an English playwright and poet.

The Thornycroft type leader or Shakespeare class were a class of five destroyer leaders designed by John I. Thornycroft & Company and built by them at Woolston, Southampton for the Royal Navy towards the end of World War I. They were named after historical naval leaders. Only Shakespeare and Spenser were completed in time for wartime service. The other three were completed after the war, Broke and Keppel after being towed to Royal dockyards for completion, and two further ships - Saunders and Spragge - were cancelled. The function of a leader was to carry the flag staff of a destroyer flotilla, therefore they were enlarged to carry additional crew, offices and signalling equipment, allowing a fifth gun to be carried. These ships were very similar to the Admiralty type leader, but had Thornycroft design characteristics, the most noticeable being the broad, slab-sided funnels.

Four British Royal Navy ships have been called HMS Ulysses:

Seven ships of the Royal Navy have borne the name HMS Termagant, after Termagant, a god that Medieval Europeans believed Muslims worshipped, and that later came to be popularised by Shakespeare to mean a bullying person:

Eight ships of the Royal Navy have borne the name HMS Undine, after the Ondines of mythology:

Nine ships of the Royal Navy have borne the name HMS Ariel, possibly after the archangel Ariel in Judeo-Christian mysticism, but certainly influenced by Shakespeare's "airy spirit" of the same name:

Seven ships of the Royal Navy have borne the name HMS Recruit:

Three ships of the Royal Navy have borne the name HMS Laertes, after either Laertes, a figure in Greek mythology, or Laertes, a character in Shakespeare's Hamlet:

Four ships of the Royal Navy have borne the name HMS Thisbe, after Thisbe, a character in Greek mythology:

HMS Valentine has been the name of more than one ship of the British Royal Navy, and may refer to:

Three ships of the British Royal Navy have been named HMS Thruster:

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