HMS Roebuck

Fourteen ships of the Royal Navy have been named HMS Roebuck after a small deer native to the British Isles.

• HMS Roebuck was a flyboat purchased in 1585.
• HMS Roebuck was a 10-gun vessel launched in 1636 and sunk in 1641 as a result of a collision.
• HMS Roebuck was a 14-gun ship captured in 1646 and commissioned into the Royalist Navy two years later. She was captured at Kinsale in 1649 by Parliamentarian forces and sold in 1651.
• HMS Roebuck was a 34-gun ship captured in 1653, converted to a hulk in 1664 and sold in 1668.
• HMS Roebuck was a 16-gun sixth rate launched in 1666 and sold in 1683.
• HMS Roebuck was a 6-gun fireship purchased in 1688. She was renamed Old Roebuck in 1690 and was deliberately sunk as a foundation in 1696.
• HMS Roebuck was an 8-gun fireship launched in 1690, and later converted to a 26-gun fifth rate. She sailed under William Dampier to Australia in 1699 and sank in 1701 at Ascension Island on the return voyage.
• HMS Roebuck was a 42-gun fifth rate launched in 1704 and dismantled in 1725. She was rebuilt in 1722, and sunk in 1743 as a breakwater.
• HMS Roebuck was a 44-gun fifth rate launched in 1743 and sold in 1764.
• HMS Roebuck was a 44-gun frigate launched in 1774 and converted to a hospital ship in 1790. In 1799 she was converted to a troopship, and four years later to a guard ship. Because Roebuck served in the navy's Egyptian campaign (8 March to 2 September 1801), her officers and crew qualified for the clasp "Egypt" to the Naval General Service Medal, which the Admiralty issued in 1847 to all surviving claimants.^[1] She was broken up in 1811.
• HMS Roebuck was a wooden screw gunvessel launched in 1856 and sold in 1864.
• HMS Roebuck was a Greyhound-class destroyer launched in 1901 and broken up in 1919.
• HMS Roebuck was an R-class destroyer launched in 1942. She was converted to a frigate in 1953 and was sold in 1968.
• HMS Roebuck was a survey ship launched in 1985, and was decommissioned in April 2010 and sold to the Bangladesh Navy.

Sources and references

Sources

1. The London Gazette: no. 21077. pp. 791–792. 15 March 1850.

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.