HMS Pyramus (1810)

HMS Pyramus was a fifth-rate 36-gun frigate launched at Portsmouth in 1810. During the Napoleonic Wars she captured some small privateers. She was hulked in 1832–1833 at Halifax, Nova Scotia. The vessel was sold and broken up in 1879.

For other ships with the same name, see HMS Pyramus.

HMS Pyramus at Portsmouth Dockyard on 6 September 1825, drawn by John Christian Schetky
History
Royal Navy EnsignUnited Kingdom
NameHMS Pyramus
Ordered
  • Initially:29 June 1805
  • Re-order:May 1808
Builder
  • Charles Greenword and Thomas Kidwell, Itchenor
  • Re-order:Portsmouth Dockyard
Laid down
  • Initially:April 1806
  • Re-order:November 1808
Launched22 January 1810
FateSold for breaking up in September 1879
General characteristics [1]
Tons burthen92020⁄94 (bm)
Length
  • Gundeck: 141 ft 1 in (43.00 m)
  • Keel: 117 ft 2+5⁄8 in (35.728 m)
Beam38 ft 5 in (11.71 m)
Depth of hold12 ft 0 in (3.66 m)
Sail planFull-rigged ship
Complement264
Armament
  • Upper deck:26 × 18-pounder guns
  • QD:2 × 9-pounder gun + 10 × 32-pounder carronades
  • Fc:2 × 9-pounder gun + 2 × 32-pounder carronades

Origin

Pyramus was the sole member of her class and was built on the lines of the French frigate Belle Poule, which the Royal Navy captured in 1780. She was ordered in 1805 and laid down the next year, but in 1807 the builder failed. The Admiralty transferred the frame to the Portsmouth Dockyard. The Admiralty reordered her and she was launched in 1810.

The information that Lord Nelson had captured Pyramus at the Battle of Copenhagen in 1801 is incorrect. (Source Dr. Ian A. Cameron, M.D, F.C.F.P., Nova Scotia Medical Bulletin, August 1987, pp. 118–120; Also, the Cambridge Digital Library / University of Cambridge website)[2][3][4][5]

Career

On 26 October 1813, Hotspur and Pyramus captured the 225 ton (bm) American letter of marque Chesapeake off Nantes. Captain Joseph Richardson had sailed her from America to France and she left Nantes on 18 October 1813.[6][lower-alpha 1]

On 29 November Pyramus captured the American vessel Zephyr, Jedediah Olcott, master, of four guns and 20 men. Zephyr had been sailing from Lorient to Charlestown.[8]

Fate

Pyramus was laid up in 1829. Between November 1832 and July 1833 she underwent fitting for a convict and receiving ship for Halifax, Nova Scotia. From 1834 to 1875 she was at Halifax.[1] She served as a hospital ship during the Chorea Epidemic.[9]

On 10 November 1879 she was sold for £1,600 for breaking up.[1]

Notes
  1. She had been commissioned at Baltimore on 7 July 1813. She had a crew of 33 and was armed with one 18-pounder gun and four 12-pounder carronades.[7]

Citations
  1. Winfield (2008), pp. 174–175.
  2. "Nova Scotia Archives - the Royal Navy in Nova Scotia Waters". 20 April 2020.
  3. "Documents of the Assembly of the State of New York". 1867.
  4. The Naval Chronicle: Volume 23, January–July 1810: Containing a ..., Volume 23
  5. British and Foreign Medico-chirurgical Review: Or, Quarterly Journal of Practical Medicine and Surgery, Volume 35
  6. Cranwell & Crane (1940), p. 157.
  7. Cranwell & Crane (1940), p. 377.
  8. "No. 16824". The London Gazette. 14 December 1813. p. 2516.
  9. Erickson (1986), p. 22.

References
  • Cranwell, John Philips; Crane, William Bowers (1940). Men of marque; a history of private armed vessels out of Baltimore during the War of 1812. New York: W.W. Norton & Co.
  • Erickson, Paul A. (1986). Halifax's North End: an anthropologist looks at the city. Lancelot Press.
  • Winfield, Rif (2008). British Warships in the Age of Sail 1793–1817: Design, Construction, Careers and Fates. Seaforth Publishing. ISBN 978-1-86176-246-7.
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