HMS Exmouth (1854)

For other ships with the same name, see HMS Exmouth.

Exmouth signalling her arrival at Naples
History
United Kingdom
Name	HMS Exmouth
Ordered	12 March 1840
Builder	Devonport Dockyard Machinery by Maudslay, Sons and Field, London
Laid down	13 September 1841
Launched	12 July 1854
Commissioned	15 March 1855
Out of service	1877 lent to Metropolitan Asylums Board as a training ship
Fate	Sold for breaking up on 4 April 1905
General characteristics
Class & type	Albion-class ship of the line
Displacement	4,382 tons
Tons burthen	3,083 tons
Length	243 ft (74 m) (overall)
Beam	60 ft 2.5 in (18.352 m)
Depth of hold	23 ft 8 in (7.21 m)
Propulsion	Sails 2-cyl. horizontal single expansion Single screw 400 nhp (1,533 ihp) = 9.55kts
Sail plan	Full-rigged ship
Complement	830 officers and men
Armament	91 guns: Gundeck: 32 × 8in Upper gundeck: 32 × 32 pdrs Quarterdeck and Forecastle: 26 × 32 pdrs, 1 × 68 pdr

HMS Exmouth was a 91-gun screw-propelled Albion-class second-rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy.

Design and construction

Plan for the Exmouth as a sailing ship

HMS Exmouth was ordered on 12 March 1840 as a 90-gun Albion-class sailing ship from Devonport Dockyard, where her keel was laid on 13 September 1841. After over a decade on the stocks, on 30 October 1852 she was ordered to be completed as a 91-gun two-decker with steam screw propulsion, and conversion began on 20 June 1853.

On 12 July 1854 Exmouth was launched by the daughter of Admiral Stopford, Admiral-superintendent of the dockyard, in the presence of a crowd estimated at 2–3,000. She was fitted out at Devonport Dockyard, and finally commissioned for service on 15 March 1855, having cost a total of £146,067, with £76,379 being spent on the hull as a sailing ship, and a further £24,620 spent on the machinery.

Naval service

In 1855, during the later stages of the Crimean War, she served in the Baltic Sea as flagship of Sir Michael Seymour. On 12 May 1857, Exmouth ran aground in Crewgreace bay, west of The Lizard, Cornwall. She was refloated. Her captain, Harry Ayres was convicted of negligence by a Court Martial and was admonished. Her master, Edward Fancourt Cavell was also convicted. He was sentenced to be reprimanded and admonished. She was a guard ship at Devonport by 1859, when future admiral Robert Spencer Robinson was her captain between 1 February 1858 and May 1859.

Training ship

From 1877, the Admiralty lent Exmouth to the Metropolitan Asylums Board as a training ship, based at Grays, Essex, replacing the similar Goliath, which had been destroyed by fire in December 1875. These ships were recommended for boys supervised by the poor law authorities as an economic means of providing them with a career which also benefited the country.

Disposal

Exmouth was sold by the Admiralty to George Cohen on 4 April 1905 and then broken up at Penarth, South Wales.

Bibliography

• Clowes, William Laird (1901). The Royal Navy: A History from the Earliest Times to the Present. Vol. VI. Sampson Low, Marston and Company.
• Colledge, J. J.; Warlow, Ben & Bush, Steve (2020). Ships of the Royal Navy: The Complete Record of all Fighting Ships of the Royal Navy from the 15th Century to the Present (5th revised and updated ed.). Seaforth Publishing. ISBN 978-1-5267-9327-0.
• Lavery, Brian (1984). The Ship of the Line. Vol. 1: The Development of the Battlefleet 1650-1850. Naval Institute Press. ISBN 0-85177-252-8.
• Lyon, David and Winfield, Rif, The Sail and Steam Navy List, All the Ships of the Royal Navy 1815-1889, Chatham Publishing, 2004, ISBN 1-86176-032-9
• Winfield, Rif (2014). British Warships in the Age of Sail 1817–1863: Design, Construction, Careers and Fates. Seaforth Publishing. ISBN 978-1-84832-169-4.

External links

• Higginbotham, Peter. "Training Ship "Exmouth", Grays, Essex". Children's Homes. Archived from the original on 13 July 2024. Retrieved 18 October 2024.
• Media related to HMS Exmouth (ship, 1854) at Wikimedia Commons