HMS Apollo (1805)
| Career (UK) |  |
|---|---|
| Name: | HMS Apollo |
| Ordered: | 7 November 1803 |
| Builder: | George Parsons, Bursledon |
| Cost: | £34,601 |
| Laid down: | April 1804 |
| Launched: | 27 June 1805 |
| Commissioned: | July 1805 |
| Fate: | Broken up, 16 October 1856 |
| General characteristics [1] | |
| Class and type: | 38-gun Fifth rate frigate |
| Tons burthen: | 1085.82 bm |
| Beam: | 39 ft 8 in (12.1 m) |
| Depth of hold: | 13 ft 6 in (4.1 m) |
| Propulsion: | Sails |
| Sail plan: | Full rigged ship |
| Complement: | 284 officers and men (later 300) |
| Armament: |
38 guns:
|
HMS Apollo, the fifth ship of the Royal Navy to be named for the Greek god Apollo, was a Fifth rate frigate of the Lively Class, carrying 38 guns, launched in 1805 and broken up in 1856.[2]
In 1806 she operated off southern Italy, under Captain Edward Fellowes, and in 1807 took part in the Alexandria expedition of 1807. In 1808, under Captain B.W. Taylor, she raided French convoys in the western Mediterranean, returning home at the end of the year. In 1811 she returned to the Mediterranean, fighting a large number of small-scale actions and raiding various French-held islands.
On 13 February 1812, Apollo took the French frigate Merinos while operating off Cape Corsica. Merinos was a relatively new frigate-built storeship of 850 tons, pierced for 36 guns but carrying only 20 eight-pounders, and on her way to Sagone for timber. The French lost 6 killed and 20 wounded out of a crew of 126; the British, despite also coming under fire from the shore, suffered no casualties. A French corvette, the ex-HMS Mohawk, accompanying Merinos, did not come to her aid and escaped.[3]
On 17 September she captured a 6-gun privateer, the xebec Ulysse. On 21 December, HMS Apollo, accompanied by the brig-sloop HMS Weazel, chased a trabaccolo under the protection of the tower of San Cataldo, on the coast between Brindisi and Otranto. A landing party from the two vessels captured the tower and blew it up.
Between 18 January and 3 February 1813, Apollo and troops captured Augusta and Carzola Islands. On 13 March, boats from Apollo and HMS Cerberus destroyed four vessels, a battery and a tower three miles northwest of the port of Monopoli near Bari. On 11 April, Apollo and Cerberus took Devil's Island, and then on 24 April, her boats captured a felucca. On 17 May boats from Apollo and Cerberus took a vessel near Brindisi, and then ten days later three gunboats at Faro.
On 13 Feb 1814, the island of Paxos, in the Adriatic, surrendered to the Apollo and a detachment of troops.
However, Captain Taylor drowned in early 1814 when his gig capsized as he was returning to Apollo from a reconnaissance at Brindisi. Apollo returned to England where she was placed in ordinary at Portsmouth the following year.[4]
After the end of the Napoleonic Wars Apollo served as a troopship for many years, including during the First Opium War.
In June 1856, the 1st Battalion, The Rifle Brigade embarked on Apollo at Balaclava at the end of the Crimean War for their return to England; she was broken up later that year.
Citations and notes
- ↑ Winfield, British Warships.
- ↑ p.17, Colledge & Warlow
- ↑ The Gentleman's Magazine, June 1812, pp. 575.
- ↑ HMS Apollo
References
- Colledge, J. J.; Warlow, Ben (2006) [1969]. Ships of the Royal Navy: the complete record of all fighting ships of the Royal Navy (Rev. ed.). London: Chatham. ISBN 9781861762818. OCLC 67375475.
- Rif Winfield, British Warships in the Age of Sail, 1793-1817, Chatham Publishing, London 2005.
- [1], HMS Apollo, Index of 19th Century Naval Vessels
