HMS Pluto

HMS Pluto

Six ships of the Royal Navy have borne the name HMS Pluto, after Pluto, a God of Roman mythology:

• HMS Pluto was an 8-gun fire ship purchased from civilian service in 1745 when she had been named Roman Emperor. She was sold in 1747.
• HMS Pluto was an 8-gun fire ship purchased from civilian service in 1756 when she had been named New Concord. She was sold in 1762.
• HMS Pluto was previously HMS Tamar, a 16-gun sloop. She was renamed HMS Pluto when she was converted into a fire ship in 1777. The French privateer Duc de Chartres captured her on 30 November 1780.^[1] Pluto's subsequent fate is unknown.^[2] The next year, Cumberland captured the privateer, which the Royal Navy took into service as HMS Duc de Chartres.^[3]
• HMS Pluto was a 14-gun fire ship launched in 1782 and sold in 1817.
• HMS Pluto was a wood paddle gunvessel launched in 1831 and broken up in 1861.
• HMS Pluto was an Algerine class minesweeper launched in 1944 and sold in 1972.

A fictional HMS Pluto appears as the admiral's flagship in the Horatio Hornblower novel A Ship of the Line.

Citations

1. Hepper (1994), p.60.
2. Demerliac (1996), p.146, #1213.
3. Demerliac (1996), p. 182, #1777.

References

• Demerliac, Alain (1996) La Marine De Louis XVI: Nomenclature Des Navires Français De 1774 À 1792. (Nice: Éditions OMEGA). ISBN 2-906381-23-3
• Hepper, David J. (1994). British Warship Losses in the Age of Sail, 1650-1859. Rotherfield: Jean Boudriot. ISBN 0-948864-30-3.