HMS Amphion (1780)

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Career (UK) Royal Navy Ensign
Name: HMS Amphion
Builder: Royal Dockyard, Chatham
Launched: 1780
Honours and
awards:		 Participated in:
Fate: Blew up, September 22, 1796
General characteristics
Class and type: fifth rate frigate
Length: 126 feet (38 m)
Beam: 35 feet (11 m)
Propulsion: Sails
Sail plan: Full rigged ship
Complement: 215
Armament: 32 guns
For other ships of the same name, see HMS Amphion.

HMS Amphion was a Royal Navy 32-gun fifth-rate ship built in Chatham in 1780 that blew up on September 22, 1796.

[edit] Service

On 10 September 1781, a small squadron under the command of the Amphion's captain, in conjunction with General Benedict Arnold, completely destroyed the town of New London, Connecticut, together with stores and shipping in the harbour.

[edit] Sinking

On September 22 1796, Amphion was completing repairs at Plymouth, England. She was lying alongside a sheer hulk close to the dockyard jetty. Being due to sail the next day, she had more than a hundred relatives and visitors on board in addition to her crew.

At about 4 p.m. she exploded without warning, killing 300 out of the 312 aboard. Among the few survivors was her captain, Israel Pellew, who went on to command a ship at the Battle of Trafalgar and ended the Napoleonic Wars as a Rear-Admiral. Pellew had been dining in his cabin with Captain Swaffield of the Overyssel and the First Lieutenant of the Amphion when they were all thrown about by the explosion; Pellew managed to rush to the cabin window before a second explosion blew him into the water from which he was rescued.

Apart from Pellew, two lieutenants, a boatswain, three or four seamen, a marine, one woman, and a child were the only survivors.

The cause of the disaster was never fully proven, but it was thought that the ship's gunner had accidentally spilled gunpowder near the fore magazine which had accidentally ignited and set off the magazine itself. The gunner had been suspected of stealing gunpowder, and on the day of the disaster he was reported to have been drunk and probably as a result less careful than usual.

[edit] References