HMS Gorgon (1785)
HMS Gorgon was a 44-gun Fifth rate two-decker ship of the Adventure Class of 911 tons, launched at Blackwall Yard in 1785 and completed as a troopship. She was subsequently converted to a storeship.
New South Wales
Under Commander John Parker, she went to New South Wales on 15 March 1791, along with the Third Fleet, arriving on 21 September 1791. She carried six months provisions for 900 people in the starving colony and Watkin Tench said “we hailed it with rapture and exhilaration”. She also carried about 30 convicts, and Philip Gidley King who was returning to the colony to take up the post of lieutenant-governor of Norfolk Island.
On 18 December 1791 the Gorgon left Port Jackson, taking home part of the marine contingent, sent by the First Fleet to guard the convicts, including Tench, Robert Ross, William Dawes, and Ralph Clark. She also carried samples of animals, birds and plants from New South Wales. At the Cape of Good Hope the Gorgon took on board Mary Bryant, her daughter Charlotte, and the four surviving male convicts involved in an escape from the penal colony. She also took on board ten of the mutineers of HMS Bounty who had been captured in Tahiti by HMS Pandora and survived the wreck of that vessel. During the voyage many of the children on board, including Charlotte Bryant, died of heat and illness.
The Gorgon arrived at Portsmouth on 21 June 1792, discharging her cargo of marines, escaped convicts, and mutineers.
Subsequent service
In 1805, she served as a floating battery on the River Shannon while under the command of William Wilkinson. By 1807 she was back in Woolwich as a storeship.
From 1809, she was a hospital ship in the Baltic under Robert Brown Tom.
In 1813, she was at Port Mahon under Rowland Mainwaring and then Richard Booth Bowden. While there she served as the flagship for Admiral Pickmore. Bowden then sailed Gorgon to America where she was part of the British fleet at the Battle of New Orleans. Before that battle her boats participated in the Battle of Lake Borgne in mid-December.
Fate
Gorgon was finally broken up in 1817.
Further reading
- Bateson, Charles, The Convict Ships, 1787-1868, Sydney, 1974.
- Gillen, Mollie, The Founders of Australia: a biographical dictionary of the First Fleet, Sydney, Library of Australian History, 1989, pp.433.
- Winfield, Rif, British Warships in the Age of Sail 1714-1792: Design, Construction, Careers and Fates. Seaforth Publishing, 2007. ISBN 978-1-84415-700-6.
