HMS Fisgard (1819)

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Career (UK) Royal Navy Ensign
Name: HMS Fisgard
Ordered: 24 August 1815
Builder: Pembroke Dockyard
Laid down: February 1817
Launched: 8 July 1819
Commissioned: 27 August 1819
Fate: Broken up by 8 October 1879
General characteristics
Class and type: 46-gun Leda-class fifth-rate frigate
Tons burthen: 1,062 bm
Length: 150 ft 1.5 in (45.758 m)
Beam: 39 ft 11 in (12.17 m)
Draught: 12 ft 9 in (3.89 m)
Sail plan: Full-rigged ship
Complement: 315
Armament:

46 guns:

  • Upper gundeck: 28 × 18 pdrs
  • Quarterdeck: 14 × 32 pdrs
  • Forecastle: 2 × 9 pdrs and 2 × 32pdr carronades

HMS Fisgard was a 46-gun fifth rate Leda-class frigate of the Royal Navy. She spent sixty years in service on a variety of duties.

Construction and commissioning

Fisgard was a continuation of the successful Leda class that had been designed by Sir John Henslow and served during the Napoleonic Wars. They had their armament increased from the earlier ships of that class, and mounted 46 guns instead of 38. Fisgard was ordered on 24 August 1815 from Pembroke Dockyard and was laid down in February 1817. She was launched on 8 July 1819 and commissioned on 27 August 1819, having cost a total of £23,493.[1]

Career

Having been accepted into service, she was laid up in ordinary for 24 years, only being activated in 1843.[2] She came under the command of Captain John Alexander Duntze on 13 May 1843 and spent some time in the Pacific, before returning to Woolwich.[3] Here she was designated as the harbour flagship and was fitted for a commodore. Commodore James John Gordon Bremer hoisted his flag aboard her on 24 October 1847, the first of a number of such officers. On 20 December 1858 Fisgard became the flagship of Commodore James Robert Drummond, the commander-in-chief at Woolwich. Her last commodore was William Edmonstone, who took command on 6 April 1868.[3] Between 1848 and 1872 she was also used to train engineers for the navy, and was the nominated depot ship for personnel stationed ashore.[4]

Decommissioning

Fisgard was eventually paid off for breaking up, a process completed at Chatham by 8 October 1879.[1] She would give her name to the later shore establishment named HMS Fisgard, which would go on to train engineers and artificers during the late nineteenth century and into the twentieth.

References

  1. 1.0 1.1 Lyon, David and Winfield, Rif, Sail and Steam Navy List, p. 26
  2. Colledge, Ships of the Royal Navy, p.127.
  3. 3.0 3.1 "HMS Fisgard's career at the William Loney RN website". http://www.pdavis.nl/ShowShip.php?id=1451. Retrieved 2010-06-15. 
  4. Warlow, Shore Establishments, p.58.