HMS Royalist (1841)

HMS Royalist was a Royal Navy ship, built as the Mary Gordon and bought by the Navy on 9 July 1841 for £7200.[1]

For other ships with the same name, see HMS Royalist.
HMS Royalist in use as a police station by an unknown 19th century artist (Thames Police Museum).
History
UK
Name: HMS Royalist (previously Mary Gordon)
Acquired: 1841
Decommissioned: 1856
In service: 1841
Out of service: 1856
Renamed: 1841
Reinstated: 1894
Fate: Broken up, 1894

She and HMS Sulphur were dismasted in a typhoon at Hong Kong on 20 July 1841. The following year she was recorded as stationed at Chusan, whilst in November 1844 she was mentioned as arriving in Singapore after losing three commanding officers and sailing under the command of her acting Second Master. She then served in Borneo, Hong Kong and the East Indies in general until 1856, when she left the navy and was acquired by the Thames Division of the Metropolitan Police.[2]

With only one shore base (Wapping Police Station), Thames Division used Royalist as an additional floating police station - she was recorded as moored off Somerset House until 1874, when a new station was opened on land at Waterloo Pier. She then moved to East Greenwich in 1874, where she remained for twenty years until the opening of the land-based police station at Blackwall. She was then returned to the Royal Navy and broken up.[3]

References
  1. Kiribati (1983). Report on the 1978 Census of Population and Housing: Analytical report: historical introduction, demographic analysis, economic characteristics. Ministry of Home Affairs.
  2. Hurley, R. C. (1920). Handbook to the British Crown Colony of Hongkong and Dependencies. Kelly and Walsh, Limited.
  3. Journal of the Polynesian Society. 1980.

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