Sixteen ships of the
Royal Navy
The Royal Navy (RN) is the naval warfare force of the United Kingdom. It is a component of His Majesty's Naval Service, and its officers hold their commissions from the King of the United Kingdom, King. Although warships were used by Kingdom ...
have been named HMS ''Pelican'', after the
bird
Birds are a group of warm-blooded vertebrates constituting the class (biology), class Aves (), characterised by feathers, toothless beaked jaws, the Oviparity, laying of Eggshell, hard-shelled eggs, a high Metabolism, metabolic rate, a fou ...
, while another was planned:
*''Pelican'' was an 18-gun
privateer
A privateer is a private person or vessel which engages in commerce raiding under a commission of war. Since robbery under arms was a common aspect of seaborne trade, until the early 19th century all merchant ships carried arms. A sovereign o ...
. She was part of
Sir Francis Drake's global circumnavigation expedition in 1577 and was renamed ''
Golden Hind
''Golden Hind'' was a galleon captained by Francis Drake in his circumnavigation of the world between 1577 and 1580. She was originally known as ''Pelican,'' but Drake renamed her mid-voyage in 1578, in honour of his patron, Sir Christopher Ha ...
'' in 1578. It is unlikely that she was ever commissioned in the Royal Navy.
* was a ship captured in 1626 and sold in 1629.
* was a 10-gun ship in
Royalist
A royalist supports a particular monarch as head of state for a particular kingdom, or of a particular dynastic claim. In the abstract, this position is royalism. It is distinct from monarchism, which advocates a monarchical system of gove ...
service between 1646 and 1648 during the
English Civil War
The English Civil War or Great Rebellion was a series of civil wars and political machinations between Cavaliers, Royalists and Roundhead, Parliamentarians in the Kingdom of England from 1642 to 1651. Part of the wider 1639 to 1653 Wars of th ...
.
* was a 38-gun ship launched in 1650 and burnt by accident in 1656.
* was a 16-gun
sloop, previously in civilian service as ''St George''. She was purchased in 1757 and sold in 1763.
* was a 10-gun
schooner
A schooner ( ) is a type of sailing ship, sailing vessel defined by its Rig (sailing), rig: fore-and-aft rigged on all of two or more Mast (sailing), masts and, in the case of a two-masted schooner, the foremast generally being shorter than t ...
, originally a French privateer. She was captured in 1775 and assigned to harbour duties in 1776. She was renamed ''Earl of Denbigh'' in 1777 and sank in 1787.
* HMS ''Pelican'' was the American Bermuda-built sloop ''Adriana'' of 150 tons (bm), that the British captured in 1777 and took into service to replace her predecessor.
* was a 24-gun
sixth-rate
In the rating system of the Royal Navy used to categorise sailing warships, a sixth-rate was the designation for small warships mounting between 20 and 28 carriage-mounted guns on a single deck, sometimes with smaller guns on the upper works an ...
launched in 1777. She foundered in 1781.
* was a 16-gun
brig-sloop
During the 18th and 19th centuries, a sloop-of-war was a warship of the Royal Navy with a single gun deck that carried up to 18 guns. The rating system of the Royal Navy covered all vessels with 20 or more guns; thus, the term encompassed all ...
, originally the French privateer ''Frédéric''.
[Demerliac (1996), p.198, #1983.] captured her in 1781; ''Pelican'' was sold in 1783.
* was an 18-gun sloop launched in 1795 and sold in 1806.
* was a 16-gun brig-sloop, previously the French navy brig ''Voltigeur''. She was captured in 1806 by and was sold in 1812.
* was an 18-gun launched in 1812. She was reassigned as a customs watchvessel in 1847 and was renamed ''WV'' 29 in 1863, finally being sold in 1865.
* was a wooden
screw sloop
A screw sloop is a propeller-driven sloop-of-war. They were popularized in the mid-19th century, during the introduction of the steam engine and the transition of fleets to this new technology.
The sailing sloop
The British sloop in the Age o ...
launched in 1860 and sold into civilian service in 1867 and renamed ''Hawk''. She was resold to the Portuguese Navy and renamed ''Infanta Dom Henrique''.
* was a composite screw launched in 1877. She was sold to the
Hudson's Bay Company
The Hudson's Bay Company (HBC), originally the Governor and Company of Adventurers of England Trading Into Hudson’s Bay, is a Canadian holding company of department stores, and the oldest corporation in North America. It was the owner of the ...
as a supply ship in 1901 and was scuttled in 1953.
* was tender, previously the
War Department War Department may refer to:
* War Department (United Kingdom)
* United States Department of War
The United States Department of War, also called the War Department (and occasionally War Office in the early years), was the United States Cabinet ...
vessel ''Sir J. Jones''. She was transferred to the Royal Navy in 1906. She was renamed HMS ''Petulant'' in 1916 and was sold in 1927.
* was an
M-class destroyer
In naval terminology, a destroyer is a fast, maneuverable, long-endurance warship intended to escort
larger vessels in a fleet, convoy, or carrier battle group and defend them against a wide range of general threats. They were conceived i ...
launched in 1916 and sold in 1921 and broken up in 1924.
* was an launched in 1938 and broken up in 1958.
*HMS ''Pelican'' was to have been a
survey vessel
A survey vessel is any type of ship or boat that is used for underwater surveys, usually to collect data for mapping or planning underwater construction or mineral extraction. It is a type of research vessel, and may be designed for the pu ...
, but she was cancelled in 1967.
See also
Citations
References
*
*Demerliac, Alain (1996) ''La Marine De Louis XVI: Nomenclature Des Navires Français De 1774 À 1792''. (Nice: Éditions OMEGA).
{{DEFAULTSORT:Pelican, Hms
Royal Navy ship names