User:Pickersgill-Cunliffe/sandbox9

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

Charon's sister ship HMS Argo
History
United Kingdom
Name	HMS Charon
Namesake	Charon
Ordered	19 September 1781
Builder	Hilhouse, Bristol
Cost	£20,065
Laid down	May 1782
Launched	17 May 1783
Completed	5 February 1784
Commissioned	September 1792
Fate	Broken up December 1805
General characteristics
Class and type	Roebuck-class fifth-rate
Tons burthen	889 63⁄94 (bm)
Length	140 ft 1+1⁄2 in (42.7 m) (gun deck) 115 ft 3+7⁄8 in (35.2 m) (keel)
Beam	38 ft 1 in (11.6 m)
Draught	11 ft 3 in (3.4 m) (forward) 14 ft 11 in (4.5 m) (aft)
Depth of hold	16 ft 4+1⁄2 in (5.0 m)
Propulsion	Sails
Complement	300
Armament	1792: Lower deck: 20 × 18-pounder guns Upper deck: 22 × 12-pounder guns Quarterdeck: Nil Forecastle: 2 × 6-pounder guns 1793: Lower deck: Nil Upper deck: 4 × 9-pounder guns Quarterdeck: 4 × 6-pounder guns Forecastle: Nil 1800: Lower deck: Nil Upper deck: 16 × 9-pounder guns Quarterdeck: 4 × 6-pounder guns Forecastle: Nil

HMS Charon was a 44-gun fifth-rate Roebuck-class ship of the Royal Navy launched in 1783. She served almost her entire career as a hospital ship and troop ship.

Design

Charon was a 44-gun, 18-pounder Roebuck-class ship. The class was a revival of the design used to construct the fifth-rate HMS Roebuck in 1769, by Sir Thomas Slade. The ships, while classified as fifth-rates, were not frigates because they carried two gun decks, of which a frigate would have only one. Roebuck was designed as such to provide the extra firepower a ship of two decks could bring to warfare but with a much lower draught and smaller profile. From 1751 to 1776 only two ships of this type were built for the Royal Navy because it was felt that they were anachronistic, with the lower (and more heavily armed) deck of guns being so low as to be unusable in anything but the calmest of waters. In the 1750s the cruising role of the 44-gun two deck ship was taken over by new 32- and 36-gun frigates, leaving the type almost completely obsolete.

Plan of the Roebuck-class ships

When the American Revolutionary War began in 1775 a need was found for heavily armed ships that could fight in the shallow coastal waters of North America, where two-decked third-rates could not safely sail, and so the Roebuck class of nineteen ships, alongside the similar Adventure class, was ordered to the specifications of the original ships to fill this need. The frigate classes that had overtaken the 44-gun ship as the preferred design for cruisers were at this point still mostly armed with 9- and 12-pounder guns, and it was expected that the class's heavier 18-pounders would provide them with an advantage over these vessels. Frigates with larger armaments would go on to be built by the Royal Navy later on in the American Revolutionary War, but these ships were highly expensive and so Charon and her sisters continued to be built as a cheaper alternative.

Construction

Ships of the class built after 1782 received an updated armament, replacing small upper deck 9-pounder guns with more modern 12-pounders. All ships laid down after the first four of the class, including Charon, had the double level of stern windows Roebuck had been designed with removed and replaced with a single level of windows, moving the style of the ships closer to that of a true frigate.

All but one ship of the class were contracted out to civilian dockyards for construction, and the contract for Charon was given to Hilhouse at Bristol. The ship was ordered on 19 September 1781 and laid down in May the following year. Charon was launched on 17 May 1783 with the following dimensions: 140 feet 1+1⁄2 inches (42.7 m) along the gun deck, 115 feet 3+7⁄8 inches (35.2 m) at the keel, with a beam of 38 feet 1 inch (11.6 m) and a depth in the hold of 16 feet 4+1⁄2 inches (5.0 m). Her draught, which made the class so valued in the American Revolutionary War, was 11 feet 3 inches (3.4 m) forward and 14 feet 11 inches (4.5 m) aft. She measured 889 63⁄94 tons burthen. The fitting out process for Charon was completed on 5 February 1784 at Plymouth Dockyard. Her construction and fitting out cost in total £20,065.

Charon received an armament of twenty 18-pounder long guns on her lower deck, with twenty-two 12-pounders on the upper deck. These were complemented by two 6-pounders on the forecastle; the quarterdeck was unarmed. The ship was to have a crew of 300 men. Charon was named after Charon, the mythological ferryman of the River Styx. She was the second ship of the class to take the name, it being re-issued after the original HMS Charon was destroyed at the Siege of Yorktown in 1781.

Service

The American Revolutionary War ended in 1783, while Charon was still under construction. With the wartime necessity of using the obsolete ships as frontline warships now at an end, most ships of the type were taken out of service. While lacking modern fighting capabilities, the design still provided a fast ship, and so the Comptroller of the Navy, Sir Charles Middleton, pressed them into service as troop ships. After her launch Charon stayed in ordinary at Plymouth. She was refitted and received her copper sheathing between September and December 1786, costing £2,662.

Charon continued at Plymouth until September 1792 when she was commissioned for the first time, under the command of Captain Edmund Dod. She then underwent work to fit her for active service which was completed on 15 November, having cost a further £4,563. Charon sailed to begin serving off the coast of Africa on 23 November, and returned from these duties in September the following year. She was then paid off.

This period in Africa was the only point in Charon's service where she served in her original configuration as a warship. Sent to Woolwich Dockyard as the French Revolutionary Wars began, between October 1793 and January 1794 the ship was transformed into a hospital ship. Charon's armament was greatly decreased, limited to four 9-pounder guns on the upper deck and four 6-pounder guns on the quarterdeck. The refit cost £6,874. In her new role Charon was recommissioned under the command of Captain George Countess while the work was underway in November 1793. The ship then joined the Channel Fleet in May 1794. In her role as a hospital ship she served at the fleet's engagement at the Glorious First of June in the following month.

Commander Walter Lock replaced Countess in command in September. The Channel Fleet fought the Battle of Groix on 23 June the following year, with Charon present. She then left the fleet in August, changing commanding officers again with Commander James Stevenson joining in October. Charon then sailed to join the Leeward Islands Station on 7 December. Serving off Barbados alongside the 38-gun frigate HMS Pique, she captured the French 14-gun privateer Lacédémonian on 9 March 1796. The ship then returned to Britain in November.

Sent to again serve in the English Channel, Stevenson relinquished command of Charon to Commander Thomas Manby in March 1797. Under him the ship captured the French 1-gun privateer lugger Alexandrine on 2 March the following year. Charon subsequently went to Woolwich for a refit, where Commander Lord Camelford assumed command in October. He retired from the navy in January 1799 and was replaced by Captain John Mackellar, under whom Charon sailed to the Mediterranean Sea in March.

Having returned from her service in the Mediterranean, Charon went to Sheerness Dockyard where between December 1799 and February 1800 she was converted into a troop ship. At a cost of £4,759 this included another armament change, with sixteen 9-pounder guns on the upper deck complemented by four 6-pounder guns still on the quarterdeck. During the refit Commander Richard Bridges took command of Charon, and under his command she sailed to take part in the Egypt Campaign in May 1800. The ship took part in British operations there in the following year. Commander Charles Marsh Schomberg replaced Bridges in June 1802 and the ship continued through the Peace of Amiens to serve in the Mediterranean. Lieutenant Edward O'Bryen Drury assumed command in September the following year, and it was under him that Charon returned to Britain in February 1804, the Napoleonic Wars now underway.

Charon was paid off to go in ordinary in June before being broken up at Woolwich in December 1805.

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