HMS St Lawrence (1814)
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 A painting of HMS St Lawrence |
|
| Career (UK) |  |
|---|---|
| Name: | HMS St. Lawrence |
| Laid down: | 12 April 1814 |
| Launched: | 10 September 1814 |
| Fate: | Sold, 1832 |
| General characteristics | |
| Tons burthen: | 2305 tons |
| Length: | 191 ft 2 in (58.3 m) (gun deck length) |
| Beam: | 52 ft 6 in (16.0 m) |
| Propulsion: | Sails |
| Complement: | 700 officers and men |
| Armament: |
112 guns:
|
HMS St Lawrence was a 112-gun first-rate wooden warship of the Royal Navy that served on Lake Ontario during the War of 1812. She was likely the only Royal Navy ship of the line ever to be launched and operated entirely in fresh water.[citation needed]
[edit] Career
The St Lawrence had her keel laid on April 12, 1814, and was launched on September 10, 1814. British naval commodore James Yeo commissioned her as his flagship (Captain Frederick Hickey) in the Kingston Royal Naval Dockyard in Kingston, Upper Canada.
At the time, Lake Ontario was effectively landlocked for any but the smallest vessels, due to shallow water and rapids on the St. Lawrence River downstream and Niagara Falls upstream. As a result, warships operating on Lake Ontario had to be built onsite, either in Kingston or in the American naval dockyards at Sackets Harbor, or converted from merchant ships already operating in the lake.
Control of the lake — the most important supply route for military operations to the west — had passed back and forth between the Americans and the British over the course of the war. The construction of a first rate ship of the line, in a campaign that had been dominated by sloops and frigates, gave the British uncontested control of the lake during the final months of the war. HMS St Lawrence never saw action, because her presence on the lake deterred the U.S. fleet from setting sail.
After the war in 1815, the ship was decommissioned and her hull was used as a storage facility by Morton's Brewery in Kingston. In January 1832, the hull was sold there to Robert Drummond for £25. Later, it was sunk in 30 feet (10 meters) of water close to shore, and is now a popular diving attraction.
[edit] Statistics
Master shipbuilder John Dennis and nearly 200 shipwrights built the St Lawrence in under 10 months [however cf. both refs 1 and 2 which state that she was designed and built by master shipwright William Bell]. The St Lawrence's 112 guns on three flush decks qualified her as a first rate, larger than Lord Nelson's flagship HMS Victory at the Battle of Trafalgar nine years earlier.
The St Lawrence measured 2,305 tons burthen, and she carried a crew of 700. In way of armaments she carried thirty-two 32pdr long guns and two 68pdr carronades on the upper deck, thirty-six 24pdr long guns on the middle deck and twenty-eight 32pdr carronades, four 24pdr long guns, and two 68pdr carronades on the lower deck.[1] She had a gundeck of 191' 2" and breadth of 52' 6".
[edit] References
- ^ Lyon & Winfield. The Sail & Steam Navy List, p. 100.
- David Lyon & Rif Winfield (2004). The Sail & Steam Navy List: All the Ships of the Royal Navy 1815-1889. ISBN 1-86176-032-9.
- Rif Winfield (2005). British Warships in the Age of Sail 1793-1817: Design, Construction, Careers and Fates. ISBN 1-86176-246-1.
- David Lyon (1997). The Sailing Navy List: All the Ships of the Royal Navy, Built, Purchased and Captured, 1688-1860. ISBN 0-85177-864-X.
- Robert Malcomson (2001). Warships of the Great Lakes: 1754-1834. ISBN 1557509107.
- Robert Malcomson (1998). Lords of the Lake. ISBN 1557505322.
- Jonathan Moore (2006). Archaeological and Historical Investigations of Three War of 1812 Wrecks at Kingston, Ontario : HMS St. Lawrence, HMS Kingston and HMS Burlington : Report for Province of Ontario Licence to Conduct Archaeological Exploration or Fieldwork 1999-096 at Sites BbGd-6, BbGc-45 and BbGc-46. ISBN 0-9781712-0-9.
