HMS Agamemnon (1852) on:
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HMS ''Agamemnon'' was a
''Agamemnon'' was attached to the Mediterranean Fleet and served in 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 ...
91-gun battleship ordered by the Admiralty
Admiralty most often refers to:
*Admiralty, Hong Kong
*Admiralty (United Kingdom), military department in command of the Royal Navy from 1707 to 1964
*The rank of admiral
*Admiralty law
Admiralty can also refer to:
Buildings
* Admiralty, Traf ...
in 1849, in response to the perceived threat from France
France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans. Its metropolitan area ...
by their possession of ships of the ''Napoléon'' class.
Characteristics
She was the first British battleship to be designed and built from the keel up with installed steam power, although, due to the inefficiency of steam engines of the period, it was expected that she would spend much of her time travelling under sail power. She therefore carried a full square rig on three masts, in common with large sailing warships of the period.Parkes. ''British Battleships''. She was named afterAgamemnon
In Greek mythology, Agamemnon (; grc-gre, Ἀγαμέμνων ''Agamémnōn'') was a king of Mycenae who commanded the Greeks during the Trojan War. He was the son, or grandson, of King Atreus and Queen Aerope, the brother of Menelaus, the ...
, the King of Mycenae, who led the Greek forces in the Trojan War.
She carried an armament of muzzle loading smooth-bore cannon, typical of warships at this time, on two decks. She was completed in 1852. She was not the first British battleship to be completed with steam power; , a pre-existing square-rigged second-rate, was converted to ancillary steam power (retaining her rig) and completed in 1851.
Service
''Agamemnon'' was attached to the Mediterranean Fleet and served in the Crimean War
The Crimean War, , was fought from October 1853 to February 1856 between Russia and an ultimately victorious alliance of the Ottoman Empire, France, the United Kingdom and Piedmont-Sardinia.
Geopolitical causes of the war included the ...
as flagship of Rear-Admiral Sir Edmund Lyons. She participated in the bombardment of Sevastopol
Sevastopol (; uk, Севасто́поль, Sevastópolʹ, ; gkm, Σεβαστούπολις, Sevastoúpolis, ; crh, Акъя́р, Aqyár, ), sometimes written Sebastopol, is the largest city in Crimea, and a major port on the Black Sea ...
on 17 October 1854. During the Great Storm of 1854 The Great Storm of 1854 occurred in and around the Black Sea on 14 November 1854. It caused severe damage and caused major disruption to armed forces—naval forces especially—in the region engaged in the Crimean War.
At the time of the storm, th ...
, she was driven ashore on the Russian coast of the Black Sea
The Black Sea is a marginal mediterranean sea of the Atlantic Ocean lying between Europe and Asia, east of the Balkans, south of the East European Plain, west of the Caucasus, and north of Anatolia. It is bounded by Bulgaria, Georgia, Rom ...
. ''Agamemnon'' participated in the shelling of Fort Kinburn, at the mouth of the Dnieper
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The Dnieper () or Dnipro (); , ; . is one of the major transboundary rivers of Europe, rising in the Valdai Hills near Smolensk, Russia, before flowing through Belarus and Ukraine to the Black Sea. It is the longest river of Ukraine and ...
river in 1855.
In 1857, the government fitted out ''Agamemnon'' to carry 1,250 tons of telegraphic cable for the Atlantic Telegraph Company's first attempt to lay a transatlantic telegraph cable
Transatlantic telegraph cables were undersea cables running under the Atlantic Ocean for telegraph communications. Telegraphy is now an obsolete form of communication, and the cables have long since been decommissioned, but telephone and data a ...
. Although this initial cable attempt was unsuccessful, the project was resumed the following year and ''Agamemnon'' and her U.S. counterpart, , successfully joined the ends of their two sections of cable in the middle of the Atlantic on 29 July 1858.
Footnotes
Sources
* Lambert, A. (1984). ''Battleships in Transition, the Creation of the Steam Battlefleet, 1815–1860''. Conway Maritime Press. . * Parkes, O. (1990). ''British Battleships''. Annapolis: Naval Institute Press. . *External links
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Agamemnon (1852) 1852 ships Battleships of the Royal Navy Cable ships of the United Kingdom Crimean War naval ships of the United Kingdom Maritime incidents in November 1854 Ships built in Woolwich Ships of the line of the Royal Navy Victorian-era battleships of the United Kingdom Victorian-era ships of the line of the United Kingdom