HMS Clio (1858)

For other ships with the same name, see HMS Clio.

HMS Clio at Anchor in Farm Cove, New South Wales, 1872
History
Royal Navy EnsignUnited Kingdom
NameHMS Clio
BuilderSheerness Dockyard
Launched28 August 1858
Decommissioned1876
FateScrapped at Bangor in 1919
General characteristics
Class and typePearl-class corvette
Displacement2,153 long tons (2,188 t)[1]
Tons burthen1458 bm[1]
Length
  • 225 ft 3 in (68.66 m) oa
  • 200 ft (61 m) (gundeck)
Beam40 ft 4 in (12.29 m)
Draught
  • 17 ft 6 in (5.33 m) (forward)
  • 18 ft 10 in (5.74 m) (aft)
Depth of hold23 ft 11 in (7.29 m)
Installed power
Propulsion
  • 2-cyl. horizontal single expansion[1]
  • Single screw
Sail planFull-rigged ship
Speed11.2 knots (20.7 km/h) (under steam)
Armament
  • 20 × 8-inch (42cwt) muzzle-loading smoothbore cannons on broadside trucks
  • 1 × 10-inch/68pdr (95cwt) muzzle-loading smoothbore cannons pivot-mounted at bow

HMS Clio was a wooden 22-gun Pearl-class corvette, built at Sheerness Dockyard and launched on 28 August 1858.[2] She was the flagship of the Australia Station between 3 September 1870 and 16 October 1873, and from 1876 was used as a school ship.

Her first commission was on the Pacific Station and in 1860 she protected Panama City and the French citizens living within the city. While in the Pacific she was dismasted in bad weather. She returned to England and placed in reserve. Under the command of Commodore Frederick Stirling, she became the flagship of the Australia Station on 3 September 1870. In 1871, she was holed after striking an uncharted rock in Bligh Sound and was beached to prevent sinking. HMS Virago provided assistance and made temporary repairs enabling the ships the sail to Wellington, where she was repaired, prior to sailing to Sydney to be dry docked.[3]

Clio, by the marine artist Thomas Somerscales. Somerscales served on board in the late 1860s.[4]

She transferred the pennant of flagship to HMS Pearl and sailed for Portsmouth on 16 October 1873.[3][5] In 1877 she became a school ship, stationed on the Menai Strait at Bangor, and had 260 pupils. She was sold for scrap and broken up in 1919.

In 1865, she sailed to Honolulu and escorted Queen Dowager Emma of the Hawaiian Kingdom to Panama for her trip to the United Kingdom.[6]

  1. ^ a b c d Winfield (2004) p. 209
  2. ^ The Times (London), Monday, 30 August 1858, p. 7
  3. ^ a b Bastock, p. 54.
  4. ^ "Thomas Jacques Somerscales". Christies. Retrieved 3 September 2021.
  5. ^ "HMS Clio". Retrieved 5 August 2010.
  6. ^ Cracroft, Sophia; Franklin, Jane; Queen Emma (1958). Korn, Alfons L. (ed.). The Victorian Visitors: An Account of the Hawaiian Kingdom, 1861–1866, Including the Journal Letters of Sophia Cracroft: Extracts from the Journals of Lady Franklin, and Diaries and Letters of Queen Emma of Hawaii. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press. pp. 176–278. hdl:10125/39981. ISBN 978-0-87022-421-8. OCLC 8989368.