Six ships of 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 ...
have borne the name HMS ''Perseus'', after the Greek hero
Perseus
In Greek mythology, Perseus (Help:IPA/English, /ˈpɜːrsiəs, -sjuːs/; Greek language, Greek: Περσεύς, Romanization of Greek, translit. Perseús) is the legendary founder of Mycenae and of the Perseid dynasty. He was, alongside Cadmus ...
:
* was 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 in 1776; she was the first vessel of the Royal Navy to be sheathed in copper.
[Chambers & Thomson (1870), Vol. 2, p.429.] She was converted to a
bomb vessel
A bomb vessel, bomb ship, bomb ketch, or simply bomb was a type of wooden sailing naval ship. Its primary armament was not cannons ( long guns or carronades) – although bomb vessels carried a few cannons for self-defence – but mortars mounte ...
in 1799 and was broken up in 1805.
* was a 22-gun sixth rate launched in 1812. She was used for harbour service from 1818 and was broken up in 1850.
* was a wooden
screw sloop
A screw sloop is a propeller-driven sloop-of-war. In the 19th century, during the introduction of the steam engine, ships driven by propellers were differentiated from those driven by paddle-wheels by referring to the ship's ''screws'' (propelle ...
launched in 1861. She was used for harbour service from 1886, was renamed HMS ''Defiance II'' in 1904 and was probably sold in 1912.
* was a
protected cruiser
Protected cruisers, a type of naval cruiser of the late-19th century, gained their description because an armoured deck offered protection for vital machine-spaces from fragments caused by shells exploding above them. Protected cruisers re ...
launched in 1897 and sold for scrap in 1914.
* was a launched in 1929 and sunk in 1941 during the Second World War.
* was a launched in 1944 as HMS ''Edgar'' but renamed a few months later. She was scrapped in 1958.
Citations and references
Citations
References
*Chambers, Robert & Thomas Thomson (1870) ''A Biographical Dictionary of Eminent Scotsmen'', Vol. 2. (Blackie and son).
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Perseus, Hms
Royal Navy ship names