HMS Dolphin

Numerous Royal Navy vessels have been named HMS Dolphin after the dolphin.


 * The first seven Dolphins were small ketches and fireships.
 * HMS Dolphin (1731), launched in 1731, was a 20-gun post ship, renamed Firebrand in 1755 and Penguin in 1757.
 * HMS Dolphin (1751), launched in 1751, was a 24-gun post ship. She was used as a survey ship from 1764 and made two circumnavigations under the command of John Byron and Samuel Wallis. She was broken up in 1777.
 * HMS Dolphin (1781) was a 44-gun fifth rate launched in 1781 and broken up in 1817. Because Dolphin served in the navy's Egyptian campaign between 8 March 1801 and 2 September, her officers and crew qualified for the clasp "Egypt" to the Naval General Service Medal, which the Admiralty issued in 1847 to all surviving claimants.
 * HMS Dolphin (1799) was originally the Dutch 24-gun Dolflin, which HMS Wolverine and HMS Arrow captured at Vlie Island in 1799. She was listed until 1801.
 * HMS Dolphin (1801) was a 10 or 12-gun cutter that the Royal Navy hired in 1793, purchased in 1801, and sold in 1802.
 * HMS Dolphin (1813) was the 12-gun American privateer schooner Dolphin that Admiral John Borlase Warren's squadron captured on 13 April 1813 and that participated in a boat action on 29 April and 5 May 1813 for which the Royal Navy issued a clasp for the Naval General Service Medal.
 * HMS Hindostan (1804) was originally the East Indiaman Admiral Rainier, purchased in 1804 and renamed Hindostan, renamed Dolphin in 1819, and Justitia in 1830. She was used as a convict ship and sold in 1855.
 * HMS Dolphin (1836) was a 3-gun brigantine launched in 1836 and sold in 1894.
 * HMS Dolphin (1882) was a screw sloop launched in 1882. She served as a submarine depot ship in World War I. She foundered in 1925 but was beached and used as a school ship. She was broken up in 1977.
 * HMS Dolphin (1914) was originally the depot ship Pandora, purchased in 1914. She was renamed Dolphin in 1924 and was sunk by a mine in 1939.
 * HMS Dolphin (shore establishment), the spiritual home of the Royal Navy's submarine service at Fort Blockhouse in Gosport, and was a submarine base until 1994 and training school to 1999.

Also: In 1803 HMS Salvador del Mundo (1797), anchored in Portsmouth, had a cutter Dolphin that made two captures in company with the privateer Henry.

Notes, sources and references

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