Four 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 ...

have borne the name HMS ''Resistance''. A fifth was planned but never built: * was a 44-gun

fifth rate In the rating system of the Royal Navy used to categorise sailing warships, a fifth rate was the second-smallest class of warships in a hierarchical system of six " ratings" based on size and firepower. Rating The rating system in the Royal ...

launched in 1782, which blew up on 24 July 1798 in the Strait of Banca, South West Sumatra in an unexplained ammunition explosion. * was a 36-gun fifth rate launched in 1801 and wrecked in 1803. * was a 38-gun fifth rate launched in 1805. She was converted into 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 1842 and was broken up in 1858. * was a launched in 1861. She was used as a

target ship A target ship is a vessel — typically an obsolete or captured warship — used as a seaborne target for naval gunnery practice or for weapons testing. Targets may be used with the intention of testing effectiveness of specific types of ammunit ...

from 1885, and was sold in 1898 but foundered in 1899. She was raised and scrapped in 1900. * HMS ''Resistance'' was to have been a . She was ordered in 1914, but was cancelled later that year. The cancellation, proposed by

Winston Churchill Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill (30 November 187424 January 1965) was a British statesman, soldier, and writer who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom twice, from 1940 to 1945 during the Second World War, and again from ...

(

First Lord of the Admiralty The First Lord of the Admiralty, or formally the Office of the First Lord of the Admiralty, was the political head of the English and later British Royal Navy. He was the government's senior adviser on all naval affairs, responsible for the di ...

) in memoranda of 1 and 14 June 1914, was intended to shave around £900,000 off that year's naval estimates, which had met with resistance from leading members of the ruling Liberal Party. It had been proposed to build submarines in place of ''Resistance'' and in place of all but two or three of that year's planned destroyers, and a new type of submersible torpedo-craft, the ''Polyphemus'' class, in place of another planned battleship HMS ''Agincourt'' (the name was reused for a different ship).Lambert 1999, pp. 300-1

Citations

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* {{DEFAULTSORT:Resistance, Hms Royal Navy ship names