HMS Constance (1846)

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Constance off Rame Head heading into Plymouth, by Richard Brydges Beechey
History
Royal Navy EnsignUnited Kingdom
NameHMS Constance
Ordered31 March 1843
BuilderPembroke Dockyard
Laid downOctober 1843
Launched12 May 1846
Completed28 June 1846
ReclassifiedConverted to screw frigate between 1860-62 at Devonport Dockyard
Refit1862
FateSold for breaking up on 23 January 1875
General characteristics As ordered
Class and type50-gun Constance-class fourth-rate frigate
Tons burthen2,125 75/94 bm
Length
  • 180 ft (54.9 m) (overall)
  • 146 ft 10.25 in (44.8 m) (keel)
Beam52 ft 8 in (16.1 m)
Depth of hold16 ft 3 in (4.95 m)
PropulsionSails
Sail planFull-rigged ship
Complement500
Armament
  • Upper deck: 28 x 32pdrs (10 x 8in/68pdr shell guns later replaced 10 x 32pdrs)
  • Quarter deck: 14 x 32pdrs
  • Forecastle: 8 x 32pdrs
General characteristics After 1860-62 refit
Class and type50-gun fourth-rate frigate
Displacement3,786 tons
Tons burthen3,212 bm
Length
  • 253 ft 11 in (77.4 m) (overall)
  • 219 ft 2 in (66.8 m) (keel)
Beam53 ft (16.2 m)
Draught
  • 21 ft 1 in (6.43 m) (forward)
  • 23 ft 7 in (7.19 m) (aft)
Depth of hold17 ft 1 in (5.21 m)
Propulsion
Sail planFull-rigged ship
Constance joining the Experimental Squadron, from a sketch by one of her officers' Lieut. J.F.B. Wainwright circa 1846-9

HMS Constance was a 50-gun

hurricane at 62° south. Walker wrote that "nothing could have exceeded the way she went over it, not even straining a rope yarn".[4] In August 1848, her captain George William Courtenay, for whom the town of Courtenay was named,[5] led 250 sailors and marines from Fort Victoria to try to intimidate the Indians.[6]

Constance in Esquimalt Harbour 1848, a sketch by John Turnstall Haverfield, a marine on board ship

In 1848, she became the first Royal Naval vessel to use Esquimalt as her base.[7]

Constance (far left) in operations at "The Temple Fort of Dwarka, at the entrance of the Gulf of Kutch," from the Illustrated London News, 1860

In 1859, she was involved in the bombardment of Dwarka in the state of Gujarat in north western India.

In 1862, she was converted to

Randolph & Elder.[9] She was the first Royal Naval ship to be fitted with this class of engine, and won a race against two frigates from Plymouth to Madeira in 1865.[10]

Her crew and officers were

References

  1. ^ Mariner's pp 64–68
  2. ^ Reports from Committees: Eighteen volumes. -(15. part II.)- Navy, Army and Ordnance Estimates: Part II (Report). London: House of Commons. 1848. p. 859.
  3. ^ Brock p26
  4. ^ Sharp p698
  5. ^ Akrigg p54
  6. ^ Gough p46
  7. ^ Akrigg p52
  8. ^ Rankine p445
  9. ^ Gardiner p174
  10. ^ The Race p90
  11. ^ times and gazette p467

Bibliography

External links