HMS Exmouth (1854)

History
United Kingdom
Name:	HMS Exmouth
Ordered:	12 March 1840
Builder:	Devonport Dockyard fitting out at Devonport Dockyard Machinery by Maudslay, Sons & Field
Laid down:	13 September 1841
Launched:	12 July 1854
Commissioned:	15 March 1855
Out of service:	Lent to Metropolitan Asylums Board as a training ship in 1877
Fate:	Sold for breaking up on 4 April 1905
General characteristics
Class & type:	Albion-class ship of the line
Displacement:	4,382 tons
Tons burthen:	3,083 tons
Length:	243 ft (74 m) (overall)
Beam:	60 ft 2.5 in (18.352 m)
Depth of hold:	23 ft 8 in (7.21 m)
Propulsion:	Sails 2-cyl. horizontal single expansion Single screw 400 nhp (1,533 ihp) = 9.55kts
Sail plan:	Full rigged ship
Complement:	830 officers and men
Armament:	91 guns: Gundeck: 32 × 8in Upper gundeck: 32 × 32 pdrs Quarterdeck and Forecastle: 26 × 32 pdrs, 1 × 68 pdr

HMS Exmouth was a 91-gun screw propelled Albion-class second-rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy.

Design

Exmouth was ordered as a 90-gun sailing ship from Devonport Dockyard in 1841, but was ordered to be converted to operate under steam propulsion on 30 October 1852. The conversion began on 20 June 1853 and Exmouth was finally launched on 12 July 1854. She fitted out at Devonport Dockyard, finally being commissioned for service on 15 March 1855, having cost a total of £146,067, with £76,379 being spent on the hull as a sailing ship, and a further £24,620 spent on the machinery.

Service

In 1855 she served in the Baltic Sea as flagship of Sir Michael Seymour. She was a guard ship at Devonport by 1859, when future admiral Robert Spencer Robinson was her captain between 1 February 1858 and May 1859. Exmouth was lent to the Metropolitan Asylums Board to serve as a training ship in 1877. According to a paper read at the Central Poor Law Conference in February 1904 these ships were recommended for boys supervised by the poor law authorities as an economic means of providing them with a career which also benefited the country.^[1] She was sold to George Cohen on 4 April 1905 and then broken up at Penarth.

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 Publishing. ISBN 978-1-86176-281-8. OCLC 67375475.
• Lavery, Brian (2003) The Ship of the Line - Volume 1: The development of the battlefleet 1650-1850. Conway Maritime Press. ISBN 0-85177-252-8.
• Lyon, David and Winfield, Rif, The Sail and Steam Navy List, All the Ships of the Royal Navy 1815-1889, pub Chatham, 2004, ISBN 1-86176-032-9

1. "Training Ships". The Workhouse. Retrieved 18 December 2014.