''Royal Adelaide'' was a

royal yacht A royal yacht is a ship used by a monarch or a royal family. If the monarch is an emperor the proper term is imperial yacht. Most of them are financed by the government of the country of which the monarch is head. The royal yacht is most often c ...

, designed as a miniature

sailing frigate A frigate () is a type of warship. In different eras, the roles and capabilities of ships classified as frigates have varied somewhat. The name frigate in the 17th to early 18th centuries was given to any full-rigged ship built for speed and ...

, which was built in 1833 and launched in the following year on the orders of King

William IV of the United Kingdom William IV (William Henry; 21 August 1765 – 20 June 1837) was King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and King of Hanover from 26 June 1830 until his death in 1837. The third son of George III, William succeeded h ...

, for use on

Virginia Water Lake Virginia Water Lake lies on the southern edge of Windsor Great Park, in the borough of Runnymede in Surrey and the civil parishes of Old Windsor and Sunningdale in Berkshire, in England. It is a man-made lake taking its name from a natural b ...

Windsor Great Park Windsor Great Park is a Royal Park of , including a deer park, to the south of the town of Windsor on the border of Berkshire and Surrey in England. It is adjacent to the private Home Park, which is nearer the castle. The park was, for many ...

Surrey Surrey () is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in South East England, bordering Greater London to the south west. Surrey has a large rural area, and several significant urban areas which form part of the Greater London Built-up Area. ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

History

The ''Royal Adelaide'' was a miniaturised version of the latest frigate, which had been designed by Sir

William Symonds Sir William Symonds CB FRS (24 September 1782 – 30 March 1856, aboard the French steamship ''Nil'', Strait of Bonifacio, Sardinia)Surveyor of the Navy The Surveyor of the Navy also known as Department of the Surveyor of the Navy and originally known as Surveyor and Rigger of the Navy was a former principal commissioner and member of both the Navy Board from the inauguration of that body in 15 ...

. The ''Royal Adelaide'' was built at

Sheerness Dockyard Sheerness Dockyard also known as the Sheerness Station was a Royal Navy Dockyard located on the Sheerness peninsula, at the mouth of the River Medway in Kent. It was opened in the 1660s and closed in 1960. Location In the Age of Sail, the R ...

under the supervision of John Fincham,United Service Journal 1834, p. 532 at a cost of £46 per

ton Ton is the name of any one of several units of measure. It has a long history and has acquired several meanings and uses. Mainly it describes units of weight. Confusion can arise because ''ton'' can mean * the long ton, which is 2,240 pounds ...

.Sharp 1858, p. 159 The yacht had been completed, disassembled and transported overland to Virginia Water by March 1834, where she was reassembled and launched in the presence of "many noblemen and gentlemen" on 13 July. The ''Royal Adelaide'' was intended to train the king's young nephews in seamanship, and his illegitimate children by the actress Dorothea Jordan. The yacht was also used to fire

gun salute A gun salute or cannon salute is the use of a piece of artillery to fire shots, often 21 in number (''21-gun salute''), with the aim of marking an honor or celebrating a joyful event. It is a tradition in many countries around the world. Histo ...

s at

garden parties A party is a gathering of people who have been invited by a host for the purposes of socializing, conversation, recreation, or as part of a festival or other commemoration or celebration of a special occasion. A party will often feature ...

and other entertainments at Fort Belvedere, a folly overlooking the lake, which was regularly used by the

royal family A royal family is the immediate family of kings/queens, emirs/emiras, sultans/ sultanas, or raja/ rani and sometimes their extended family. The term imperial family appropriately describes the family of an emperor or empress, and the term ...

. She was armed with twenty-two brass 1-pounder

cannon A cannon is a large- caliber gun classified as a type of artillery, which usually launches a projectile using explosive chemical propellant. Gunpowder ("black powder") was the primary propellant before the invention of smokeless powder ...

and was supervised, along with the other vessels on the lake, by a

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 ...

officer; in 1861, Captain David Welch was appointed "Keeper of Her Majesty’s Boats and other Vessels at Virginia Water" on a salary of £150 per annum. By 1862, the ''Royal Adelaide'' was becoming dilapidated and although the issue of replacement was raised,

Queen Victoria Victoria (Alexandrina Victoria; 24 May 1819 – 22 January 1901) was Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland from 20 June 1837 until Death and state funeral of Queen Victoria, her death in 1901. Her reign of 63 years and 21 ...

stated that she should be retained in a "purely ornamental" condition and repairs were carried out accordingly. A Royal Navy survey of 1877 advised that her timbers were unsound and consequently she was condemned to be broken-up, but survived long enough to fire a salute on Victoria's forty-first accession day on 20 June 1878.

Surviving elements

The figurehead of ''Royal Adelaide'', thought to represent

Britannia Britannia () is the national personification of Britain as a helmeted female warrior holding a trident and shield. An image first used in classical antiquity, the Latin ''Britannia'' was the name variously applied to the British Isles, Great ...

, has survived and is now in the

National Museum of the Royal Navy, Portsmouth The National Museum of the Royal Navy, Portsmouth, formerly known as the Royal Naval Museum, is a museum of the history of the Royal Navy located in the Portsmouth Historic Dockyard section of HMNB Portsmouth, Portsmouth, Hampshire, England. The ...

. The brass cannon were donated by the Prince of Wales, later King

Edward VII Edward VII (Albert Edward; 9 November 1841 – 6 May 1910) was King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and Emperor of India, from 22 January 1901 until his death in 1910. The second child and eldest son of Queen Victoria an ...

, to the

Royal Yacht Squadron The Royal Yacht Squadron (RYS) is a British yacht club. Its clubhouse is Cowes Castle on the Isle of Wight in the United Kingdom. Member yachts are given the suffix RYS to their names, and are permitted (with the appropriate warrant) to we ...

Cowes Castle Cowes Castle, also known as West Cowes Castle, is a Device Fort in Cowes on the Isle of Wight. Originally built by Henry VIII in 1539 to protect England against the threat of invasion from France and the Holy Roman Empire, it comprised a ci ...

, where they are used today to signal the start of races, especially at Cowes Week. Four of the guns have been stolen in recent decades but have been replaced by replicas. The guns are in the care of the Yeoman of the Royal Yacht Squadron and are now fired remotely by race officials. A 1:24 scale

ship model Ship models or model ships are scale models of ships. They can range in size from 1/6000 scale wargaming miniatures to large vessels capable of holding people. Ship modeling is a craft as old as shipbuilding itself, stretching back to ancient t ...

is in the collection of the

National Maritime Museum The National Maritime Museum (NMM) is a maritime museum in Greenwich, London. It is part of Royal Museums Greenwich, a network of museums in the Maritime Greenwich World Heritage Site. Like other publicly funded national museums in the United ...

in Greenwich.

References

Books

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History

Surviving elements

References

Books

See also