HMS Pigeon (1805)

Last updated

History
Naval Ensign of the United Kingdom.svg United Kingdom
NameHMS Pigeon
Ordered11 December 1805
Launched1801
Acquiredex-mercantile Fanny purchased 28 May 1805
CommissionedMay 1805
FateWrecked 30 November 1805
General characteristics [1]
Class and typeDespatch cutter
Type Schooner
Tons burthen75 bm
Length57 ft 7 in (17.55 m)
Beam17 ft 6 in (5.33 m)
Propulsion Sails
Complement17
Armament4 × 12-pounder carronades

HMS Pigeon was the mercantile Fanny which the Admiralty purchased on 28 May 1805 for use as a despatch cutter. [1] She was wrecked, though without loss of life, in November.

Contents

Service

After her purchase, Pigeon was fitted for foreign service at Deptford between 25 May and 10 August. She was commissioned in May under Lieutenant John Luckraft. [1] One of his first tasks was to pick up Dudley Ryder, 1st Earl of Harrowby, from Tribune and to convey him up the Elbe River to Hamburg on a diplomatic mission.

Fate

Pigeon was wrecked off the Texel on 30 November while carrying despatches for Lieutenant General George Don at Bremerlehe. [2] [lower-alpha 1] Her crew was saved, but became prisoners of the Dutch. Luckraft was freed the next year.

The court martial on 20 February 1806 found that it was pilot Robert Barron's inexperience that caused the wreck; he was severely reprimanded and lost all pay. However, the court saved its greatest criticism for Luckraft. It deemed his actions before and after the wreck to be so incompetent that it constituted criminal negligence. He was so drunk at the time of the wreck that his orders were incoherent. The court ordered him dismissed the service and to be imprisoned in the Marshalsea or two months. [4]

Notes

  1. ↑ Gosset has the wreck occurring on a sandbank three quarters of a mile from the town of Rysum in East Frisia. However, this is less consistent with accounts that put the wreck off the Texel and that she was carrying despatches to Bremerlehe and that the crew became prisoners of the Dutch. [3]

Citations

  1. 1 2 3 Winfield (2008), p. 370.
  2. ↑ O'Byrne (1849), pp. 682-3.
  3. ↑ Gosset (1986), p. 51.
  4. ↑ Hepper (1994), p. 113.

Related Research Articles

Vénus was a corvette of the French Navy that the British captured in 1800. Renamed HMS Scout, she served briefly in the Channel before being wrecked in 1801, a few days after taking a major prize.

HMS Advice was a 10-gun cutter that the Royal Navy purchased in 1779. She was wrecked in 1793.

HMS Raven was a Cruizer-class brig-sloop built by Perry, Wells and Green at Blackwall Yard and launched in 1804. Although she embodied some interesting innovations tailored for service in the area of the Straits of Gibraltar, she was wrecked before she got on station and never tested them. Her captain, the innovator, was the subject of a miscarriage of justice at his court martial for the loss of the ship from which his career never recovered.

HMS <i>Halcyon</i> (1813) Brig-sloop of the Royal Navy

HMS Halcyon (1813) was a Royal Navy Cruizer-class brig-sloop that Edward Larking & William Spong built at King's Lynn and launched in 1813. She had one of the shortest lives of any vessel of her class.

HMS Barracouta was a Royal Navy Ballahoo-class schooner. The prime contractor for the vessel was Goodrich & Co., in Bermuda, and she was launched in 1804. Like many of her class and the related Cuckoo-class schooners, she succumbed to the perils of the sea relatively early in her career.

HMS Capelin was a Royal Navy Ballahoo-class schooner carrying four 12-pounder carronades and a crew of 20. The prime contractor for the vessel was Goodrich & Co., in Bermuda, and she was launched in 1804. Like many of her class and the related Cuckoo-class schooners, she succumbed to the perils of the sea relatively early in her career.

HMS Grouper was a Royal Navy Ballahoo-class schooner of four 12-pounder carronades and a crew of 20. The prime contractor for the vessel was Goodrich & Co., in Bermuda, and she was launched in 1804. Grouper was wrecked off Guadeloupe in 1811. This schooner was the only Royal Navy ship ever to use the name.

HMS Chub was a British Royal Navy Ballahoo-class schooner of four 12-pounder carronades and a crew of 20. The prime contractor for the vessel was Goodrich & Co., in Bermuda, and she was launched in 1807. She and her crew were lost when she was wrecked in August 1812.

HMS Woodcock was a Royal Navy Cuckoo-class schooner. Crane & Holmes built and launched her at Great Yarmouth in 1806. Like many of her class and the related Ballahoo-class schooners, she succumbed to the perils of the sea relatively early in her career.

HMS Crane was a Royal Navy Cuckoo-class schooner of four 12-pounder carronades and a crew of 20. She was built by Custance & Stone at Great Yarmouth and launched in 1806. Like many of her class and the related Ballahoo-class schooners, she succumbed to the perils of the sea relatively early in her career.

HMS Pigeon was a Royal Navy Cuckoo-class schooner. Custance & Stone built and launched her at Great Yarmouth in 1806. Like many of her class and the related Ballahoo-class schooners, she succumbed to the perils of the sea relatively early in her career.

HMS Cuckoo was a Royal Navy Cuckoo-class schooner of four 12-pounder carronades and a crew of 20. She was built by James Lovewell at Great Yarmouth and launched in 1806. Like many of her class and the related Ballahoo-class schooners, she succumbed to the perils of the sea relatively early in her career.

HMS Whiting was a Royal Navy Ballahoo-class schooner of four 12-pounder carronades and a crew of 20. The prime contractor for the vessel was Goodrich & Co., in Bermuda, and she was launched in 1805. She was a participant at the Battle of Basque Roads. A French privateer captured her at the beginning of the War of 1812, shortly after the Americans had captured and released her in the first naval incident of the war.

French corvette <i>Aréthuse</i>

Aréthuse, launched in April 1798, was the name-ship of the eponymous Aréthuse-class corvettes of the French Navy. Excellent captured her in 1799. The Royal Navy took her into service under the name HMS Raven. She was wrecked in 1804.

HMS <i>Emulous</i> (1806) Brig-sloop of the Royal Navy

HMS Emulous was a Royal Navy 18-gun Cruizer-class brig-sloop, built by William Row at Newcastle and launched in 1806. She survived an inconclusive but bloody battle with a French frigate during the Napoleonic Wars and captured a number of prizes, including two privateers, on the Halifax station during the War of 1812 before she was wrecked in 1812.

HMS Mandarin was a Dutch gun-brig of 178 tons burthen (bm) and 12 guns that the British had captured at Amboyna in February 1810. She served as part of a four-vessel flotilla that captured Banda Neira. She was wrecked in November 1810.

HMS Fulminante was a cutter belonging to the French Navy that the British captured in 1798, the French recaptured in 1800, and the British re-recaptured three months later. She was wrecked early in 1801.

HMS <i>Grasshopper</i> (1806) Brig-sloop of the Royal Navy

HMS Grasshopper was a Cruizer-class brig-sloop of the Royal Navy. She was launched in 1806, captured several vessels, and took part in two notable actions before the Dutch captured her in 1811. She then served The Netherlands navy until she was broken up in 1822.

HMS Berbice was the Batavian Republic's schooner Serpent that HMS Heureux took possession of at Berbice in 1803 at the capitulation of the colony and that the Navy purchased in 1804. Berbice foundered in 1806 off Demerara.

HMS Redbridge was the mercantile schooner Union that the Royal Navy purchased in 1804. She wrecked at Nassau, Bahamas in November 1806.

References

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.