HMS St Lawrence (1814)
A painting of HMS St Lawrence
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History | |
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United Kingdom | |
Name | St Lawrence |
Builder | Kingston Royal Naval Dockyard, Kingston |
Laid down | 12 April 1814 |
Launched | 10 September 1814 |
Decommissioned | 1815 |
Fate | Sold, 1832 |
General characteristics | |
Type | Ship of the line |
Tons burthen | 2,304 90⁄94 bm |
Length | 194 ft 2 in (59.18 m) (gun deck length) |
Beam | 52 ft 7 in (16.03 m) |
Complement | 700 |
Armament |
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Designated | 2015 |
HMS St Lawrence was a 102-gun first-rate wooden warship of the Royal Navy that served on Lake Ontario during the War of 1812. Built on the lake at the Royal Navy dockyard in Kingston, Ontario, she was the only Royal Navy ship of the line ever to be launched and operated entirely in fresh water.[1] Constructed in 1814, the ship's arrival on the lake ended all naval action and St Lawrence finished the war having never gone into battle. Following the war, the vessel was laid up, eventually being sold in 1832 to private interests. The ship later sank and is now a recreational dive spot.
Description
Master shipbuilder John Dennis and nearly 200 shipwrights built St Lawrence in under ten months, although several sources credit master shipwright William Bell as the designer and builder.
As built St Lawrence measured 2,304+90⁄94
The crew numbered 700. She carried thirty-two 32-pounder
Service history
The ship was ordered to remedy the imbalance between the Royal Navy and United States naval forces under the command of Isaac Chauncey on landlocked Lake Ontario.[7]
At the time, Lake Ontario was effectively landlocked for any but the smallest vessels, due to shallow water and rapids on the St. Lawrence River downstream and Niagara Falls upstream. As a result, warships operating on Lake Ontario had to be built on site, either in Kingston or in the American naval dockyards at Sackets Harbor, or converted from merchant ships already operating in the lake.
Control of the lake, which was the most important supply route for the British for military operations to the west, had passed back and forth between the Americans and the British over the course of the war. The construction of a first rate ship of the line, in a campaign that had been dominated by sloops and frigates, gave the British uncontested control of the lake during the final months of the war. HMS St Lawrence never saw action, because her presence on the lake once battle-ready deterred the U.S. fleet from setting sail.[8]
St Lawrence's
St Lawrence was launched on 10 September 1814.[5] British naval commodore Sir James Lucas Yeo commissioned her as his flagship, with Captain Frederick Hickey as Flag Captain, in the Kingston Royal Naval Dockyard in Kingston, Upper Canada.[2] The ship cost Britain £500,000.[10] The day after the ship's launch, an American fleet under Chauncey appeared off Kingston and offered to battle, which the British declined.[3] The vessel did not put to sea until 16 October, making several trips around Lake Ontario. On 19 October, she was struck by lightning, damaging the mast and killing several of the crew. The Americans made an attempt to blow St Lawrence up in Kingston harbour using a "torpedo" which was much more like a floating naval mine. The British drove the attackers off before they could make a serious attempt on the vessel.[11]
After the war ended in 1815, the ship was
Model
The Royal Military College of Canada Museum in Kingston, Ontario has a scale model of HMS St Lawrence, built by master modeller Louis Roosen.[16]
Citations
- ^ Malcolmson 1997, p. 419.
- ^ a b c Winfield 2005, p. 55.
- ^ a b Malcolmson 2001, p. 300.
- ^ Malcolmson 2001, p. 293.
- ^ a b c Winfield 2005, p. 57.
- ^ Lyon & Winfield 2004, p. 100.
- ^ a b Malcolmson 2001, p. 239.
- ^ Malcolmson 2001, pp. 309–310.
- ^ Malcolmson 2001, p. 295.
- ^ Hounsom 1970, p. 17.
- ^ Bamford 2007, p. 127.
- ^ a b Preston 1964, p. 290.
- ^ Preston 1964, p. 283.
- ^ Kidd, Kenneth (3 May 2009). "Feared warship now 'just a keel and bunch of ribs'". The Toronto Star. Retrieved 14 June 2017.
- ^ McKay, Julia (4 August 2015). "War of 1812 Shipwrecks designated historic site". The Kingston Whig-Standard. Retrieved 15 July 2017.
- ^ RMC club site. Archived 13 July 2009 at the Wayback Machine
References
- Bamford, Don (2007). Freshwater Heritage: A History of Sail on the Great Lakes, 1670–1918. Toronto: Natural Heritage Books [Dundurn Group]. ISBN 978-1-897045-20-6.
- Hounsom, Eric Wilfrid (1970). Toronto in 1810. Toronto, Ontario: Ryerson Press. ISBN 0770003117.
- Lyon, David; Winfield, Rif (2004). The Sail & Steam Navy List: All the Ships of the Royal Navy, 1815–1889. London: Chatham. ISBN 1-86176-032-9.
- Malcolmson, Robert (1997). "HMS St Lawrence: The Freshwater First-Rate". The Mariner's Mirror. 83 (4): 419–33. .
- Malcolmson, Robert (2001) [1998]. Lords of the Lake: The Naval War on Lake Ontario 1812–1814 (Paperback ed.). Toronto: Robin Brass Studio. ISBN 1-896941-24-9.
- Moore, Jonathan (2006). Archaeological and Historical Investigations of Three War of 1812 Wrecks at Kingston, Ontario : HMS St. Lawrence, HMS Kingston and HMS Burlington : Report for Province of Ontario Licence to Conduct Archaeological Exploration or Fieldwork 1999-096 at Sites BbGd-6, BbGc-45 and BbGc-46. Ottawa. ISBN 0-9781712-0-9.)
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: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link - Preston, R. A. (1964) [Reprinted c. 1980]. "The Fate of Kingston's Warships". In Zazlow, Morris (ed.). The Defended Border (Paperback ed.). Toronto: Macmillan of Canada. ISBN 0-7705-1242-9.
- Winfield, Rif (2005). British Warships in the Age of Sail, 1793–1817: Design, Construction, Careers and Fates. Barnsley, UK: Seaforth Publishing. ISBN 978-1-84415-717-4.