HMS Forward (1805)

For other ships of the same name, see HMS Forward.
Career (United Kingdom)
Name: HMS Forward
Ordered: June 1804
Builder: Joseph Todd, Berwick
Laid down: July 1804
Launched: January 1805
Commissioned: November 1804
Fate: Sold 14 December 1815
General characteristics
Class and type:Archer-class gun-brig
Tons burthen:1783094 bm
Length:80 ft 0 in (24.38 m) (gundeck)
65 ft 10 14 in (20.072 m) (gundeck)
Beam:22 ft 6 34 in (6.877 m)
Depth of hold:9 ft 5 in (2.87 m)
Sail plan:Brig
Complement:50
Armament:10 x 18-pounder carronades, and 2 chase guns

HMS Forward was a 12-gun gun-brig of the Archer class of the British Royal Navy.

History

She was built under contract by Joseph Todd of Berwick and launched in January 1805.

On 23 April 1808, during the Gunboat War, the Forward towed three boats from the Daphne and two from the Tartarus, in an attack on ten laden vessels, moored at Flodstrand in Denmark. Despite coming under artillery and musket fire from a fortification, the vessels were successfully spirited away, with five men wounded in the action. [1]

During the War of 1812, she was present off the Gulf Coast. The Forward and a transport were the last remaining vessels in the vicinity of the British Post at Prospect Bluff, and were used to spirit away the last of the garrison, whom were embarked on 16 May.[2] Edward Nicolls, Woodbine, and the Redstick Creek leader Josiah Francis, arrived at Amelia Island, in East Florida on 7 June 1815, where rumours circulated that the officers were seeking to either obtain British possession of Florida from Spain, or at least to arm and supply the Florida factions resisting American territorial expansion.[3] (In fact, Nicolls had been heading to the Bahamas, and had unintentionally ended up in Florida.[4])The Forward arrived in Bermuda, and disembarked her passengers on 28 June. Edward Nicolls embarked the brig HMS Forward on 29 June 'for passage to England', and disembarked at Portsmouth on 13 September 1815.[2]

Citations

  1. The Naval History of Great Britain 5. London url=http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=Am7WCEX4KekC: Harding, Lepard & Co. 1826. p. 45.
  2. 2.0 2.1 "Royal Marines on the Gulf Coast". Retrieved 3 June 2014. Extracted information from the muster of HMS Forward
  3. Niles' Weekly Register 8. 15 July 1815. p. 347. It is proper your excellency [the Governor of Georgia] should know that on the 7th inst. a brig and transport arrived at Amelia Island, with col. Nichols[sic], Captain Woodbine, an Indian Chief, and his son. Missing or empty |title= (help)
  4. Letter from Nicolls to Anthony St. John Baker, HM Chargé D'Affaires, Washington dated 12 June 1815, written at Amelia Island. This is within WO 1/143 folios 168-169, commencing on page 118 of 143 which can be downloaded for a fee from the UK National Archives website 'I had intended to write to you from the Bahamas ... but being obliged to put in here in distress'

References