HMS Temeraire (1798)

Type

Ship of the Line

Period

18th Century

Nation

Great Britain

Overview: HMS Temeraire was a 98-gun second-rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy, immortalized as "The Fighting Temeraire" for her role at the Battle of Trafalgar and her later depiction in J. M. W. Turner's famous painting of the same name. Specifications: A Neptune-class ship, she measured 185 ft (56 m) on the gundeck with a 51 ft 2 in (15.6 m) beam and carried 98 guns across three decks — 32-pounders on the lower gundeck, 18-pounders on the middle and upper gundecks, and 12-pounders on the quarterdeck and forecastle, with a complement of 738 men. She was built at Chatham Dockyard, laid down in July 1793 and launched on 11 September 1798. Service History: Temeraire spent most of her active career on blockade and convoy escort duty with the Channel Fleet off Brest, an assignment so tedious that a mutiny broke out among her crew over rumored deployment to the West Indies. Her one great moment came at Trafalgar in 1805, where she famously came to the aid of Nelson's flagship HMS Victory and engaged and helped capture two French ships, an action for which she was singled out in Admiral Collingwood's despatch as "most noble and distinguished". Notable Facts: After Trafalgar she never saw further combat, and was reclassified successively as a prison ship (1813–1819), receiving ship (1820–1828), victualling depot (1828–1836), and guard ship (1836–1838) before being broken up in 1838. Her final tow up the Thames to the breaker's yard was captured in Turner's iconic 1839 painting, cementing her legacy as one of the most romanticized ships in British naval art.