HMS Enterprise (1848)

The Devils Thumb, Ships Boring and Warping in the Pack, Dedicated by special permission to the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty By their Lordships most obedient Servant W H Browne, Lieut R N HMS Enterprise (left) and HMS Investigator (right)
Career (UK)
Name:	HMS Enterprise
Builder:	Money Wigram and Sons, Blackwall
Cost:	£24,545
Launched:	5 April 1848
Acquired:	Purchased February 1848 on stocks
Fate:	Coal depot 1860 Lent to the Board of Trade Sold 15 September 1903
General characteristics
Class and type:	Arctic Discovery Ship
Tonnage:	741 tons (Builder's Measure)
Length:	125.6 ft (38.3 m)
Beam:	28.8 ft (8.8 m)
Depth of hold:	20 ft (6.1 m)
Sail plan:	Barque-rigged

For other ships of the same name, see HMS Enterprise.

HMS Enterprise was an Arctic discovery ship laid down as a merchant vessel and purchased in 1848 before launch to search for Sir John Franklin's lost expedition. She made two Arctic voyages before becoming a coal depot, and was finally sold in 1903. She was the tenth Enterprise (or Enterprize) to serve in the Royal Navy.

Construction

She was laid down as a merchant vessel at the Blackwall yard of Money Wigram and Sons, but purchased by the Admiralty in February 1848 and fitted for Arctic exploration. She was launched on 5 April 1848.

Career

Enterprise made two voyages to the Arctic, the first via the Atlantic in 1848-1849 under James Clark Ross, then in 1850-1854 via the Pacific and the Bering Strait in an expedition led by Richard Collinson.

From 1860 she was lent to the Commissioners of Northern Lights for use as a coal hulk at Oban, and from 1889 she was lent to the Board of Trade. She was sold in 1903.

Bibliography

• Arctic Hell-Ship : the voyage of HMS Enterprise, 1850-1855 by William Barr, University of Alberta Press, USA, 2007, ISBN 0888644825