HMS Actaeon (1831)

HMS Actaeon was a 26-gun sixth-rate frigate of the Royal Navy.

Career
Actaeon was designed in 1827 by the School of Naval Architecture, and launched from Portsmouth Dockyard on 31 January 1831. She was first commissioned in November 1830 under Captain Frederick William Grey for service in the Mediterranean, followed by service off South America from November 1834 under Captain Lord Edward Russell where she was involved in the chartering of the Acteon Group: a group of islands named by Russell after this vessel. By 1838 she was back in Portsmouth under the command of Robert Russell, who sailed her back to South America in August that year. Actaeon was back in Britain, this time at Plymouth in 1844, before departing for the African coast in December 1844 under Captain George Mansel. Whilst serving on this post, she captured the slavers Astrea and Theresa on 9 September 1847.

She was paid off at Portsmouth in 1848, but was recommissioned again in 1857 to serve as a survey vessel off "the coast of China and Tartary", under the command of Captain William Thornton Bate. She was then present at the bombardment of Canton in 1857, during the Second Opium War, where Bate was shot and killed on 29 December. He was replaced by Robert Jenkins on 30 December, and then by John Ward on 1 March 1858. Ward carried out surveys for further military operations in August 1859, before returning to Britain. Actaeon was at Shanghai on the night of Sunday, 7 April 1861 for the British census. Actaeon Sound in the Queen Charlotte Strait region of British Columbia, Canada, was named for the Actaeon in 1865.

Actaeon was then out of commission at Portsmouth in 1866, becoming a hospital ship. She was hulked in 1870 and lent to the Cork Harbour Board, before being sold at Portsmouth in February 1889 for breaking up.