The plan of Thunderer | |
History | |
---|---|
Great Britain | |
Name | HMS Thunderer |
Ordered | 23 July 1781 |
Builder | John & William Wells, Rotherhithe |
Laid down | March 1782 |
Launched | 13 November 1783 |
Commissioned | January 1793 |
Fate | Broken up, March 1814 |
Notes | |
General characteristics [1] | |
Class and type | Culloden-class ship of the line |
Tons burthen | 1,679 (bm) |
Length | 170 ft 8 in (52.02 m) (gundeck) |
Beam | 47 ft 7 in (14.50 m) |
Depth of hold | 19 ft 11 in (6.07 m) |
Propulsion | Sails |
Sail plan | Full-rigged ship |
Complement | about 600 |
Armament |
|
HMS Thunderer was a ship of the line of the Royal Navy, built in 1783. She carried 74-guns, being classified as a third rate. During her service she took part in several prominent naval battles of the French Revolutionary Wars and the Napoleonic Wars; including the Glorious First of June, the Battle of Cape Finisterre and the Battle of Trafalgar.
Thunderer was built by the Wells brother's shipyard in Rotherhithe and launched on 13 November 1783. [1] After completion, she was laid up until 1792, when she underwent a 'Middling Repair' to bring her into service in 1793.[ citation needed ]
In 1794 she fought at the Glorious First of June under Captain Albemarle Bertie, and from 1796 to 1801 served in the West Indies, under a succession of captains.[ citation needed ] During this period, under Captain Pierre Flasse, Thunderer fought at the Battle of Jean-Rabel in which she and HMS Valiant forced the crew of the French frigate Harmonie to scuttle their vessel to prevent her capture.
On 15 October, Melampus and Latona, and later Orion and Thalia, and later still Pomone and Concorde, chased two French frigates, Tartu and Néréide, 50-gun frigate Forte, and the brig-aviso (or corvette) Éveillé . [2] The British ships had to give up on the frigates due to the closeness of the shore. However, Pomone and Thunderer, which had joined the chase, were able to take Eveillé, of 18 guns, and 100 men. [2] [lower-alpha 1] The French force had been out for 60 days and had captured 12 West Indiamen, two of which, Kent and Albion, the British had already recaptured. [2] Pomone and her squadron had recaptured Kent on 9 October. [5] Orion recaptured Albion. Warren's squadron returned to England in December with the remnants of the expedition to Quiberon Bay.
In mid-1799 Thunderer was part of a British squadron that detained the schooner Pegasus. Pegasus had been flying an American flag and was carrying 68 slaves from Jamaica to Havana. [6] Her captors sent Pegasus into the Bahamas where they were sold in late June and early July. The advertisements for the sales gave the origins of the slaves as Martinique, [7] suggesting that Pegasus had been carrying false papers.
On 10 October 1800, Thunderer rescued the crew of HMS Diligence which had struck a reef off the north coast of Cuba. The British set fire to Diligence as they left. It turned out that she had hit an uncharted shoal near Rio Puercos. [8]
Thunderer was recommissioned in 1803 under the command of Captain William Bedford. [9]
On 14 June 1803 Rosamond arrived at Torbay. She had been sailing to France from San Domingue when Thunderer captured her. Rosamond was carrying a cargo of coffee, cotton, and sugar with an estimated value of £30,000. [10]
On 26 July 1803 Thunderer captured the French privateer brig Venus. Venus, of 358 tons (bm), was pierced for 28 cannons but carried 18, sixteen 6-pounder guns and two 8-pounder carronades. She had a crew of 150 men, under the command of M. Lemperierre. She had sailed from Bordeaux five days earlier, in company with four other privateers. In his letter describing the capture, Captain Bedford described her as quite new, coppered, and well suited for the Royal Navy. [11] [lower-alpha 2]
In 1805 Thunderer fought in Admiral Calder's fleet at the Battle of Cape Finisterre. Her captain, William Lechmere, returned to England to attend a court-martial as a witness to the events of Admiral Calder's action off Cape Finisterre at the time of the battle. Later that year she fought at the Battle of Trafalgar under the command of her First Lieutenant, John Stockham. [13] The surgeon on board was Scotsman James Marr Brydone, who was the first of the main British battle fleet to sight the Franco-Spanish fleet. Thunderer signalled the Victory and three minutes later battle orders were signalled to the British fleet beginning the Battle of Trafalgar.[ citation needed ] On 25 November, Thunderer detained the Ragusan ship Nemesis, of 350 tons (bm), four guns and 18 men, Poulovich, master. Nemesis was sailing from Isle de France to Leghorn, Italy, with a cargo of spice, indigo dye, and other goods. [14] Thunderer shared the prize money with ten other British warships. [15]
In 1807, Thunderer served in the Dardanelles Operation as part of a squadron under Admiral Sir John Duckworth and was badly damaged when the squadron withdrew from the area. [13] However, she accompanied Duckworth on the Alexandria expedition of 1807, and in May left Alexandria for Malta, where she was provisioned and repaired over a period of 30 days. [16]
She was decommissioned in November 1808 and broken up in March 1814. [17]
It is reputed that some of her timbers were re-used to build Christ Church, Totland on the Isle of Wight, whilst others were used in the construction of the lych gate at St. Nicolas' Church at North Stoneham near Eastleigh. [18]
HMS Ajax was an Ajax-class 74-gun third-rate ship of the line of the British Royal Navy. She was built by John Randall & Co of Rotherhithe and launched on the Thames on 3 March 1798. Ajax participated in the Egyptian operation of 1801, the Battle of Cape Finisterre in 1805 and the Battle of Trafalgar, before she was lost to a disastrous fire in 1807 during the Dardanelles Operation.
Formidable was an 80-gun Tonnant-class ship of the line of the French Navy, laid down in August 1794 and given the name Formidable, on 5 October, but renamed Figuieres on 4 December 1794, although the name was restored to Formidable on 31 May 1795 after she was launched at Toulon on 17 March 1795. She participated in the Battle of Algeciras, the Battle of Cape Finisterre and several other actions before the British captured her at the Battle of Cape Ortegal on 4 November 1805. The British took her into service as HMS Brave. She was sold to be broken up in April 1816.
Admiral of the Red Sir William Cornwallis, was a Royal Navy officer. He was the brother of Charles Cornwallis, the 1st Marquess Cornwallis, British commander at the siege of Yorktown. Cornwallis took part in a number of decisive battles including the siege of Louisbourg in 1758, when he was 14, and the Battle of the Saintes but is best known as a friend of Lord Nelson and as the commander-in-chief of the Channel Fleet during the Napoleonic Wars. He is depicted in the Horatio Hornblower novel, Hornblower and the Hotspur.
Scipion was a 74-gun French ship of the line, built at Lorient to a design by Jacques Noel Sane. She was launched as Orient in late 1798, and renamed Scipion in 1801. She was first commissioned in 1802 and joined the French Mediterranean fleet based at Toulon, in the squadron of Admiral Leissègues. Consequently she was one of the ships afloat in that port when war with England reopened in May 1803. She participated in the Battle of Cape Finisterre and the Battle of Trafalgar. The British captured her in the subsequent Battle of Cape Ortegal. In 1810 she participated in the Java campaign, which in 1847 earned her surviving crew the Naval General Service Medal. She participated in the blockade of Toulon in 1813 and was paid off in 1814. She was broken up in 1819.
HMS Pegasus was a 28-gun Enterprise-class sixth rate. This frigate was launched in 1779 at Deptford and sold in 1816. Pegasus had a relatively uneventful career and is perhaps best known for the fact that her captain from 1786 to 1789 was Prince William Henry, the future King William IV. By 1811 Pegasus was a receiving ship at Chatham; she was sold in 1816.
HMS Endymion was a 40-gun fifth rate that served in the French Revolutionary Wars, the Napoleonic Wars, the War of 1812 and during the First Opium War. She was built to the lines of the French prize Pomone captured in 1794. Due to her exceptional handling and sailing properties, the Severn-class frigates were built to her lines, although the gunports were rearranged to mount an extra pair of guns per side, the ships were made of softwood and were not built until nearly the end of the Napoleonic Wars.
HMS Arethusa was a 38-gun Minerva-class fifth-rate frigate of the Royal Navy built at Bristol in 1781. She served in three wars and made a number of notable captures before she was broken up in 1815.
Astrée was a 44-gun Pallas-class frigate of the French Navy, launched at Cherbourg in 1809. In December of the next year she captured HMS Africaine. The Royal Navy captured Astrée in 1810 and took her into service under her French name, rating her as a 38-gun frigate, but then in 1811 recommissioned her as HMS Pomone. She served during the War of 1812 and was broken up in 1816.
Minerve was a 40-gun Minerve-class frigate of the French Navy. The British captured her twice and the French recaptured her once. She therefore served under four names before being broken up in 1814:
HMS Powerful was a 74-gun third rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy. She took part in the defeat of a Dutch fleet in the Battle of Camperdown in 1797, the capture of a French privateer in the action of 9 July 1806, in operations against the Dutch in the East Indies during the raids on Batavia and Griessie in 1806 and 1807, and finally in the Walcheren Campaign during 1809.
HMS Dragon was a 74-gun third rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy, launched on 2 April 1798 at Rotherhithe. She was designed by Sir William Rule, and was the only ship built to her draught.
HMS Phoenix was a 36-gun Perseverance-class fifth-rate frigate of the Royal Navy. The shipbuilder George Parsons built her at Bursledon and launched her on 15 July 1783. She served in the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars and was instrumental in the events leading up to the battle of Trafalgar. Phoenix was involved in several single-ship actions, the most notable occurring on 10 August 1805 when she captured the French frigate Didon, which was more heavily armed than her. She was wrecked, without loss of life, off Smyrna in 1816.
Pomone was a 40-gun frigate of the French Navy, launched in 1785. The British captured her off the Île de Batz in April 1794 and incorporated her into the Royal Navy. Pomone subsequently had a relatively brief but active career in the British Navy off the Atlantic and Mediterranean coasts of France before suffering sufficient damage from hitting a rock to warrant being taken out of service and then broken up in 1803.
The Impérieuse was a 40-gun Minerve-class frigate of the French Navy. The Royal Navy captured her in 1793 and she served first as HMS Imperieuse and then from 1803 as HMS Unite. She became a hospital hulk in 1836 and was broken up in 1858.
The action of 29 November 1811 was a minor naval engagement fought between two frigate squadrons in the Adriatic Sea during the Adriatic campaign of the Napoleonic Wars. The action was one of a series of operations conducted by the British Royal Navy and the French Navy to contest dominance over the Adriatic between 1807 and 1814. During this period the Adriatic was surrounded by French territory or French client states and as a result British interference was highly disruptive to the movement of French troops and supplies.
Admiral Sir Lawrence William Halsted GCB was an officer of the Royal Navy who served during the American War of Independence and the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars.
Concorde was a 32-gun frigate of the French Navy, lead ship of her class. Built in Rochefort in 1777, she entered service with the French early in the American War of Independence and was soon in action, capturing HMS Minerva in the West Indies. She survived almost until near the end of the war when HMS Magnificent captured her in 1783. Not immediately brought into service due to the draw-down in the navy after the end of the war, Concorde underwent repairs and returned to active service with the outbreak of war with France in 1793 as the fifth-rate HMS Concorde.
HMS Venus was the name ship of the 36-gun Venus-class fifth-rate frigates of the Royal Navy. She was launched in 1758 and served for more than half a century until 1809. She was reduced from 36 to 32 guns in 1792. She was sold in 1822.
HMS Janus was the Dutch fifth-rate Argo, built at the dockyard of the Amsterdam Admiralty, and launched in 1790. HMS Phoenix captured her on 12 May 1796. The British Royal Navy took her into service as HMS Janus. She was a receiving ship by 1798 and in Ordinary by 1807. The Navy sold her in 1811.
HMS Sylph was a 16-gun Albatross-class brig-sloop of the Royal Navy designed by William Rule and launched in 1795 at Deptford Dockyard. Her namesake was the air spirit sylph. She commissioned in August 1795 under Commander John Chambers White, who would have her until the end of 1799. She was later commanded by Charles Dashwood.