HMS Eurydice (1843)

Victory at Trafalgar HMS Eurydice sinking off the Isle of Wight, Illustrated London News.
Career
Name:	HMS Eurydice
Ordered:	1841?
Laid down:	April 1842
Launched:	16 May 1843
Fate:	Foundered in 1878 Salvaged and broken up that year
General characteristics
Type:	Frigate
Tons burthen:	911 bm
Length:	119 ft 9.75 in (36.5189 m) (keel) 141 ft 2 in (43.03 m) (o/a)
Beam:	38 ft 10 in (11.84 m)
Draught:	8 ft 9 in (2.67 m)
Complement:	around 190 as a commissioned warship
Armament:	2 × long 32 pdr (15 kg) guns, 6 × short 32 pdr (15 kg) guns, 18 × 32 pdr (15 kg) guns (unknown length)

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

HMS Eurydice was a 24-gun frigate which was the victim of one of Britain's worst peace-time naval disasters when she sank in 1878.

Origins of Eurydice

Designed by Admiral the Hon. George Elliot, the second Eurydice was a very fast 24-26 gun frigate designed with a very shallow draught to operate in shallow waters. After spending about 18 years on active service, Eurydice was converted into a stationary training ship in 1861. In 1877, she was refitted for seagoing service as a training ship.

Loss of Eurydice

After being recommissioned under the command of Captain Marcus Augustus Stanley Hare, Eurydice sailed from Portsmouth on a three-month tour of the West Indies and Bermuda on 13 November 1877. On 6 March 1878, she began her return voyage from Bermuda for Portsmouth. After a very fast passage across the Atlantic, on 24 March 1878 Eurydice was caught in a heavy snow storm off the Isle of Wight, capsized and sank. Only two of the ship's 378 crew and trainees survived, most of those who were not carried down with the ship died of exposure in the freezing waters. One of the witnesses to the disaster was a young Winston Churchill, who was living at Ventnor with his family at the time. The wreck was refloated later in the year but had been so badly damaged during her period submerged that she was then broken up. Her ship's bell is preserved in St. Paul's Church, Gatten, Shanklin.

Prelude to a second disaster

An inquiry found that the vessel had sunk through stress of weather and that her officers and crew were blameless for her loss. There was some adverse comment on the suitability of Eurydice as a training ship because of her extreme design, which was known to lack stability. However, she was immediately replaced by another 26-gun frigate of identical tonnage but slightly less radical hull-lines, HMS Juno. Ironically, Juno was renamed HMS Atalanta and made two successful voyages between England and the West Indies before disappearing at sea in 1880 with the loss of 281 lives; the ship is believed to have been lost in a storm. Later British seagoing training ships were smaller purpose-built brigs.

Eurydice in folklore

Reported sightings of a ghost ship off the Isle of Wight have been linked to Eurydice. Prince Edward reportedly saw the ship and even caught it on film in 1998.

In literature

"The Loss of the Eurydice" is a major poem by Gerard Manley Hopkins.

Sources

• David Lyon, The Sailing Navy List, All the Ships of the Royal Navy Built, Purchased and Captured 1688-1860
• The Times, various dates 1878.

External links

• Isle Of Wight Shipwrecks: Eurydice
• Memorials in St. Ann's Church, Portsmouth for HMS Eurydice's crew and passengers.