Sixteen ships and two shore establishments of the Royal Navy have been named HMS ''Fox'', after the

fox Foxes are small to medium-sized, omnivorous mammals belonging to several genera of the family Canidae. They have a flattened skull, upright, triangular ears, a pointed, slightly upturned snout, and a long bushy tail (or ''brush''). Twelv ...

Ships

* was a 22-gun ship captured from the French in 1650 and expended as a fireship in 1656. * was a 14-gun ship captured in 1658 and expended as a fireship in 1666. * was an 8-gun fireship launched in 1690 and expended in 1692 at La Hougue. * was a 6-gun

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 ...

launched in 1699 and wrecked later that year. * was a 24-gun sixth rate captured in 1705 and wrecked the following year. * HMS ''Fox'' was a 24-gun sixth rate launched in 1702 as . She was captured by the French in 1707, was recaptured later that year and renamed HMS ''Fox'', rebuilt in 1727 and broken up in 1737. * was a 20-gun sixth rate launched in 1740 and foundered in 1745. * was a 24-gun sixth rate launched in 1746 and foundered in a hurricane in 1751. * was an 8-gun ketch launched in 1766, and still in the records in 1772. * was a 28-gun sixth rate launched in 1773, captured by the Americans in 1777, recaptured a month later, then captured by the French in 1778. She ran aground in March 1779 on Pointe St Jacques on Rhuys Peninsula and could not be refloated. * was a 32-gun fifth rate launched in 1780 and broken up in 1816. *HM hired armed

cutter Cutter may refer to: Tools * Bolt cutter * Box cutter, aka Stanley knife, a form of utility knife * Cigar cutter * Cookie cutter * Glass cutter * Meat cutter * Milling cutter * Paper cutter * Side cutter * Cutter, a type of hydraulic rescue to ...

, of twelve 9-pounder guns, was hired on 27 March 1793 and sunk in action at the Battle of Santa Cruz de Tenerife (1797). * was a 14-gun

schooner A schooner () is a type of sailing vessel defined by its rig: fore-and-aft rigged on all of two or more masts and, in the case of a two-masted schooner, the foremast generally being shorter than the mainmast. A common variant, the topsail schoon ...

purchased in 1799 and wrecked later that year off Dog Island, Apalachee Bay, Florida. There were no lives lost despite the fact that the crew had to wait for 33 days with little food and water before they were rescued. * was a 46-gun fifth rate launched in 1829, converted to a screw frigate in 1856, and broken up in 1882. * was an second class cruiser launched in 1893 and sold in 1920. * was a survey vessel launched in 1967 and sold in 1989.

Shore establishments

* was the Navy's base at

Lerwick Lerwick (; non, Leirvik; nrn, Larvik) is the main town and port of the Shetland archipelago, Scotland. Shetland's only burgh, Lerwick had a population of about 7,000 residents in 2010. Centred off the north coast of the Scottish mainland ...

Shetland Shetland, also called the Shetland Islands and formerly Zetland, is a subarctic archipelago in Scotland lying between Orkney, the Faroe Islands and Norway. It is the northernmost region of the United Kingdom. The islands lie about to the no ...

between 1939 and 1945. *HMS ''Fox II'' was the Coastal Forces Base at Lerwick between 1942 and 1944.

Battle honours

Ships named ''Fox'' have earned the following battle honours: * Gabbard, 1653 * Orfordness, 1666 * Barfleur, 1692 * Genoa, 1795 * St Vincent, 1797 * Egypt, 1801 * Burma, 1852-3

Citations and references

Citations

References