HMS Hector (1774)

History
UK
Name:	HMS Hector
Ordered:	14 January 1771
Builder:	Adams, Deptford
Laid down:	April 1771
Launched:	27 May 1774
Honours and awards:	Naval General Service Medal with clasp "Egypt"[1]
Fate:	Broken up, 1816
General characteristics [2]
Class & type:	Royal Oak-class ship of the line
Tons burthen:	1622 (bm)
Length:	168 ft 6 in (51.36 m) (gundeck)
Beam:	46 ft 9 in (14.25 m)
Depth of hold:	20 ft (6.1 m)
Propulsion:	Sails
Sail plan:	Full rigged ship
Armament:	Gundeck: 28 ×  32-pounder guns Upper gundeck: 28 ×  18-pounder guns QD: 14 ×  9-pounder guns Fc: 4 ×  9-pounder guns

HMS Hector was a 74-gun third rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy, launched on 27 May 1774 at Deptford.^[2]

Career

On 9 May 1801 Hector, Kent, and Cruelle unsuccessfully chased the French corvette Heliopolis, which eluded them and slipped into Alexandria.^[3]

Because Hector served in the navy's Egyptian campaign (8 March to 8 September 1801), her officers and crew qualified for the clasp "Egypt" to the Naval General Service Medal that the Admiralty authorised in 1850 for all surviving claimants.^{[Note 1]}

Fate

Hector was converted for use as a prison ship in 1808, and was broken up in 1816.^[2]

Notes and citations

Notes

1. A first-class share of the prize money awarded in April 1823 was worth £34 2s 4d; a fifth-class share, that of an able seaman, was worth 3s 11½d. The amount was small as the total had to be shared between 79 vessels and the entire army contingent.^[4]

Citations

1. The London Gazette: no. 21077. pp. 791–792. 15 March 1850.
2. Lavery, Ships of the Line vol.1, p179.
3. James (1837), p.93.
4. The London Gazette: no. 17915. p. 633. 3 April 1823.

References

• James, William (1837). The Naval History of Great Britain, from the Declaration of War by France in 1793, to the Accession of George IV. R. Bentley.
• 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.