HMS Driver (1840)

HMS Driver was a Driver-class wooden paddle sloop of the Royal Navy. She is credited with the first global circumnavigation by a steamship when she arrived back in England on 14 May 1847.

Construction and commissioning
Driver was ordered on 12 March 1840 from Portsmouth Dockyard to a design by Sir William Symonds. She was laid down in June 1840 and launched on 24 December 1840, with her machinery being supplied by Seaward & Capel of Limehouse, Woolwich. Her hull cost £19,433, with the machinery costing another £13,866. After she had completed fitting out, at a further cost of £6,408, she was commissioned on 5 November 1841.

Career
During her circumnavigation Driver became the first steamship to visit New Zealand, arriving on 20 January 1846, and was involved in the New Zealand Wars, including the Hutt Valley Campaign. At the time of her visit she was described as a brig-rigged 6-gun warship displacing 1,058 tons with engines rated 280 horsepower.

On 11 March 1850 she was docked in Victoria Harbour to witness Richard Blanshard assume the Governorship of the newly formed Colony of Vancouver Island, and issued a seventeen-gun salute.

Fate
She was wrecked on 3 August 1861 on Mayaguana Island, the most easterly of the Bahamas, in the West Indies.