HMS ''Dee'' was the first

paddle steamer A paddle steamer is a steamship or steamboat powered by a steam engine that drives paddle wheels to propel the craft through the water. In antiquity, paddle wheelers followed the development of poles, oars and sails, where the first uses wer ...

ordered for the

Royal Navy The Royal Navy (RN) is the United Kingdom's naval warfare force. Although warships were used by English and Scottish kings from the early medieval period, the first major maritime engagements were fought in the Hundred Years' War against F ...

, designed to carry a significant armament. She was ordered on 4 April 1827 from

Woolwich Dockyard Woolwich Dockyard (formally H.M. Dockyard, Woolwich, also known as The King's Yard, Woolwich) was an English Royal Navy Dockyard, naval dockyard along the river Thames at Woolwich in north-west Kent, where many ships were built from the early 1 ...

. She was designed by Sir Robert Seppings, Surveyor of the Navy and modified by Oliver Lang. This vessel was considered as new construction as a previous vessel ordered as a flush deck

brig A brig is a type of sailing vessel defined by its rig: two masts which are both square rig, square-rigged. Brigs originated in the second half of the 18th century and were a common type of smaller merchant vessel or warship from then until the ...

in 1824, had been renamed ''African'' in May 1825. She was initially classed as a steam vessel (SV), and in 1837 reclassified as a steam vessel class 2 (SV2). She was converted to a

troopship A troopship (also troop ship or troop transport or trooper) is a ship used to carry soldiers, either in peacetime or wartime. Troopships were often drafted from commercial shipping fleets, and were unable land troops directly on shore, typicall ...

in May 1842 and as a second class

sloop A sloop is a sailboat with a single mast typically having only one headsail in front of the mast and one mainsail aft of (behind) the mast. Such an arrangement is called a fore-and-aft rig, and can be rigged as a Bermuda rig with triangular sa ...

in 1846. She was converted into a

storeship Combat stores ships, or storeships, were originally a designation given to ships in the Age of Sail and immediately afterward that navies used to stow supplies and other goods for naval purposes. Today, the United States Navy and the Royal Nav ...

in 1868. She was broken at Sheerness in 1871. ''Dee'' was the third ship to carry this name since it was introduced for a 20-gun

sixth rate In the rating system of the Royal Navy used to categorise sailing warships, a sixth-rate was the designation for small warships mounting between 20 and 28 carriage-mounted guns on a single deck, sometimes with smaller guns on the upper works and ...

, launched by Bailey of Ipswich on 5 May 1814 and sold on 33 July 1819 to Pitman.

Design and specifications

Her

keel The keel is the bottom-most longitudinal structural element on a vessel. On some sailboats, it may have a hydrodynamic and counterbalancing purpose, as well. As the laying down of the keel is the initial step in the construction of a ship, in Br ...

was laid in October 1829 at

and launched on 5 April 1832. The gundeck was in length with reported for tonnage calculation. Her maximum breadth was with reported for tonnage calculation. Her

depth of hold Depth(s) may refer to: Science and mathematics * Three-dimensional space * Depth (ring theory), an important invariant of rings and modules in commutative and homological algebra * Depth in a well, the measurement between two points in an oil w ...

was . Her draught both fore and aft was . Her builder's measure for tonnage was 704 tons with a displacement of 907 tons. Her machinery was supplied by Maudslay, Son and Field of Lambeth. She shipped two rectangular fire-tube boilers. The steam engine was a vertical single expansion (VSE) side lever engine with cylinders of with a stroke of , rated at 200

nominal horsepower Horsepower (hp) is a unit of measurement of power, or the rate at which work is done, usually in reference to the output of engines or motors. There are many different standards and types of horsepower. Two common definitions used today are the ...

(nhp). The engines were connected to two diameter paddle wheels. Steam was produced and delivered to the engines from tubular boilers at above atmospheric pressure. The

Science Museum, London The Science Museum is a major museum on Exhibition Road in South Kensington, London. It was founded in 1857 and is one of the city's major tourist attractions, attracting 3.3 million visitors annually in 2019. Like other publicly funded ...

has a model of ''Dee''s engine. When the paddle wheels turned 18 revolutions per minute, she had a maximum speed of . In 1856, ''Dee'' and the yacht were used in a trial of J Wethered's apparatus for

superheated steam Superheated steam is steam at a temperature higher than its vaporization point at the absolute pressure where the temperature is measured. Superheated steam can therefore cool (lose internal energy) by some amount, resulting in a lowering of its ...

. This produced an economy of fuel of 18% in ''Black Eagle'', and 31% in ''Dee''. In 1866, she was given a new 220 nominal horsepower engine. Her initial armament consisted of two 18-pounder 22 hundredweight (cwt) muzzle loading smooth bore (MLSB) guns on pivot mounts. Her armament was soon changed to six 32-pounder MLSB guns all on pivot mounts. The six guns were a combination of four 63 cwt and two 56 cwt guns. Late in her career the 56 cwt guns were replaced with a single 10-inch 86 cwt shell gun. In 1868 when converted to a

, her armament was removed.

Commissioned service

First commission

HMS ''Dee'' initial commission was on 9 June 1832 under the command of Commander Robert Oliver, RN for service with the squadron blockading the Dutch coast from 9 June 1832 – 27 May 1834, when the steamers ''Dee'' and were part of a Royal Navy force including three line-of-battle ships and ten other sailing ships that blockaded the Dutch ports in 1832. This was in support of the

French Army The French Army, officially known as the Land Army (french: Armée de Terre, ), is the land-based and largest component of the French Armed Forces. It is responsible to the Government of France, along with the other components of the Armed For ...

, which had intervened in the

Belgian Revolution The Belgian Revolution (, ) was the conflict which led to the secession of the southern provinces (mainly the former Southern Netherlands) from the United Kingdom of the Netherlands and the establishment of an independent Kingdom of Belgium. T ...

in support of the Belgians against the Dutch, and intervened again to besiege the Dutch garrison of Antwerp. "The two steamers had been particularly useful in the narrow channels of the Dutch estuaries with their fast tidal currents." With the end of the Dutch blockade she was assigned to the Home Station under the command of Commander Edward Stanley, RN on 5 November 1833. On 29 May 1854 she was assigned to the

North America and West Indies station The North America and West Indies Station was a formation or command of the United Kingdom's Royal Navy stationed in North American waters from 1745 to 1956. The North American Station was separate from the Jamaica Station until 1830 when the t ...

under the command of Commander William Ramsay, RN. She returned to Home Waters, paying off in April 1837.

Second commission

Her second commission started in February 1838 under the command of Commander Joseph Shearer, RN for service on south-east coast of America. She returned to Home Waters paying off in May 1841.

Conversion to transport

In December 1841 she was taken in hand at

Sheerness Sheerness () is a town and civil parish beside the mouth of the River Medway on the north-west corner of the Isle of Sheppey in north Kent, England. With a population of 11,938, it is the second largest town on the island after the nearby town ...

for conversion to a troop transport. The first phase was completed in June 1842 at a cost of £6,939. She was recommissioned under the command of Thomas Driver, Master on 26 May 1842. She underwent the second phase at Woolwich from June to September 1842 at a cost of £5,461. In March 1846 the Dee was engaged bringing food supplies to Sligo as relief following the first failed harvest of the Great Irish Famine. On 18 May 1848 she was under the command of George Filmer, Master for service at the Cape of Good Hope Station. On 14 September 1852 she was under the command of Lieutenant George T.C. Smith, RN remaining at the Cape of Good Hope Station. She returned to Home Waters in mid-1854.

Conversion to storeship

Between November and December 1854 she was converted to a storeship at Portsmouth at a cost of £860. She was recommissioned on 23 November 1854 under the command of Thomas C. Pullen, Master. She paid off in 1860. On 12 June 1863 she was commissioned under the command of George Raymond, Master as a storeship. On 14 October 1869, George Waters, Master took command at Woolwich.

Disposition

She was paid off for the last time on 17 June 1871 at Sheerness. She was broken at Sheerness in October 1871.Winfield

Citations

References

* ADM 53/444, UK National Archives catalogue, ADM 53/444, Log of HMS Dee, 9 June 1832 – 27 May 1834 * Colledge, Ships of the Royal Navy, by J.J. Colledge, revised and updated by Lt Cdr Ben Warlow and Steve Bush, published by Seaforth Publishing, Barnsley, Great Britain, © 2020, (EPUB), Section D (Dee) * Brown, Paddle Warships, the earliest steam powered fighting ships, 1815-1850, by David K. Brown 1993, * Brown DK, Before the ironclad, by David K. Brown, published by Conway Maritime Press, 1990, * Busk, The Navies of the World by Hans Busk, published by Routledge, Warnes and Routledge, 1859 * Greenhill, Steam, Politics and Patronage, the transformation of the Royal Navy 1815-54, by Basil Greenhill and Ann Giffard, published by Conway Maritime Press, 1994, * Lyon Winfield, The Sail & Steam Navy List, All the Ships of the Royal Navy 1815 to 1889, by David Lyon & Rif Winfield, published by Chatham Publishing, London © 2004, , Part I, Chapter 3, Paddle Steamers (Wooden) * Winfield, British Warships in the Age of Sail (1817 – 1863), by Rif Winfield, published by Seaforth Publishing, England © 2014, (e-book), Chapter 11 Steam Paddle Vessels, Vessels acquired from 1 January 1817, Dee {{DEFAULTSORT:Dee (1832) Paddle sloops of the Royal Navy Ships built in Woolwich 1832 ships Victorian-era sloops of the United Kingdom