HMS Kent (1798)

History
Great Britain
Name: HMS Kent
Ordered: 30 April 1795
Builder: John Perry and Company Blackwall Yard
Laid down: October 1795
Launched: 17 January 1798
Commissioned: 3 April 1798 at Woolwich Dockyard
In service:
  • 1798–1804
  • 1805–1809
  • 1829–1842
  • 1855–1881
Honours and
awards:		 Naval General Service Medal with clasp "Egypt"[1]
Fate: Broken up, 1881
General characteristics 1798–1817
Class and type: Ajax-class ship of the line
Tons burthen: 1963​73⁄94 (bm)
Length:
  • 182 ft 8 in (55.68 m) (gundeck)
  • 149 ft 11 in (45.69 m) (keel)
Beam: 49 ft 7.5 in (15.126 m)
Depth of hold: 21 ft 5 in (6.53 m)
Sail plan: Full rigged ship
Complement: 690
Armament:
  • Gundeck: 28 × 32-pdrs
  • Upper deck: 28 × 24-pdrs
  • QD: 14 × 9-pdrs
  • Fc: 4 × 9-pdrs
General characteristics 1820–1881
Class and type: Ajax-class ship of the line
Tons burthen: 2009​62⁄94 (bm)
Length:
  • 184 ft 2.5 in (56.147 m) (gundeck)
  • 150 ft 10.5 in (45.987 m) (keel)
Beam: 50 ft 0 in (15.24 m)
Depth of hold: 21 ft 10 in (6.65 m)
Sail plan: Full rigged ship
Armament:
  • Gundeck: 28 × 32-pdrs
  • Upper gundeck: 28 × 24-pdrs
  • QD: 4 × 9-pdrs & 8 x 32-pdr carronades
  • Fc: 4 × 9-pdrs

HMS Kent was a 74-gun third-rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy, launched on 17 January 1798 at Blackwall Yard.[2]

Career

'View of Mr Perry's Yard, Blackwall, commemorating the launch of HM ship Kent

On 9 May 1801 Kent, Hector and Cruelle unsuccessfully chased the French corvette Heliopolis, which eluded them and slipped into Alexandria.[3] Because Kent served in the Navy's Egyptian campaign (8 March to 8 September 1801), her officers and crew qualified for the clasp "Egypt" to the Naval General Service Medal that the Admiralty authorised in 1850 for all surviving claimants.[Note 1]

On 13 December 1809 350 sailors and 250 marines from Kent,and two other 74-gun third rates, Cambrian and Ajax, attacked Palamós. (The sloops Sparrowhawk and Minstrel covered the landing.) The landing party destroyed six of eight merchant vessels with supplies for the French army at Barcelona, as well as their escorts, a national ketch of 14 guns and 60 men and two xebecs of three guns and thirty men each. The vessels were lying inside the mole under the protection of 250 French troops, a battery of two 24-pounders, and a 13" mortar in a battery on a commanding height. Although the attack was successful, the withdrawal was not. The British lost 33 men killed, 89 wounded, and 86 taken prisoner, plus one seaman who took the opportunity to desert.[5]

Fate

Kent became a sheer hulk in 1856, and was broken up in 1881.[2]

Notes and citations

Notes

  1. ↑ A first-class share of the prize money awarded in April 1823 was worth £34 2s 4d; a fifth-class share, that of a seaman, was worth 3s 11½d. The amount was small as the total had to be shared between 79 vessels and the entire army contingent.[4]

Citations

  1. ↑ "No. 21077". The London Gazette. 15 March 1850. pp. 791–792.
  2. 1 2 Lavery 2003, p. 184
  3. ↑ James (1902), p.75.
  4. ↑ "No. 17915". The London Gazette. 3 April 1823. p. 633.
  5. ↑ James (1837), Vol. 5, pp.259-60.

References

  • James, William (1837). The Naval History of Great Britain, from the Declaration of War by France in 1793, to the Accession of George IV. R. Bentley.
  • James, William (1902). The Naval History of Great Britain, from the Declaration of War by France in 1793, to the Accession of George IV. R. Bentley.
  • Lavery, Brian (2003) The Ship of the Line - Volume 1: The development of the battlefleet 1650-1850. Conway Maritime Press. ISBN 0-85177-252-8.


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