HMS Sidon (1846)

HMS Sidon was a first-class paddle frigate designed by Sir Charles Napier: her name commemorated his attack on the port of Sidon in 1840 during the Syrian War. Her keel was laid down on 26 May 1845 at Deptford Dockyard, and she was launched on 26 May 1846. She had a fairly short career for a warship, but it included the rescue of the crew of the sinking Peninsular & Oriental Steam Navigation vessel Ariel on 28 May 1848, and a trip up the Nile that same year, when her passengers included the explorer and botanist Joseph Dalton Hooker. She served in the Black Sea during the Crimean War, 1854-55 under the command of Captain George Goldsmith. In April 1854, in company with HMS Firebrand (Captain William Houston Stewart), she blockaded the coast from Kavarna to the mouths of the River Danube. In September, during the actual Allied invasion of the Crimea, she was assigned to escorting the French troop transports, and assisted the French line-of-battleship Algiers, which had gone aground in Eupatoria Bay. She was then sent to monitor Russian movements around Odessa, and on 4 October attacked a marching column of 12,000 men on their way to the Crimea. On this occasion she was hit in the funnel by a Russian rocket. She was sold for breaking up on 15 July 1864 to Castle and Beech.