HMS Thetis (1871)

History
United Kingdom
Name	HMS Thetis
Namesake	Thetis
Builder	Devonport Dockyard
Laid down	29 August 1870
Launched	26 October 1871
Completed	1 February 1873
Fate	Sold for scrap, November 1887
General characteristics (as built)
Class and type	Briton-class wooden screw corvette
Displacement	1,854 long tons (1,884 t)
Tons burthen	1,322 bm
Length	220 ft (67.1 m) (p/p)
Beam	36 ft (11.0 m)
Draught	16 ft 6 in (5.0 m)
Depth of hold	21 ft 6 in (6.6 m)
Installed power	2,275 ihp (1,696 kW)
Propulsion	1 × shaft; 1 × 2-cylinder compound expansion steam engine; 6 × cylindrical boilers;
Sail plan	Ship rig
Speed	13 knots (24 km/h; 15 mph)
Complement	220
Armament	14 × 6.3-inch 64-pounder rifled muzzle-loading guns

HMS Thetis was a Briton-class wooden screw corvette built for the Royal Navy in the late 1860s.

History

Thetis was driven ashore in 1874 whilst on duty in the East Indies. It was reported that she would be repaired at Bombay, India or Trincomalee, Ceylon.^[1] On 10 March 1879, she was damaged by fire at Keyham, Devon.^[2] The fire was caused by improper storage of materials on board which spontaneously combusted. Damage amounted to £4,000 worth of stores lost and £1,000 worth to the ship.^[3] She was present at the Bay of Pisagua when Chilean troops captured the port on 2 November 1879, during the Tarapaca Campaign.^[4]

References

^ "Shipping Disasters". Liverpool Mercury. No. 8378. Liverpool. 25 November 1874.
^ "An English Man-of-War on Fire". Daily Gazette for Middlesbrough. No. 3659. Middlesbrough. 11 March 1879.
^ "The Fire on Board H.M.S. Thetis". Aberdeen Journal. No. 7509. Aberdeen. 14 March 1879.
^ "Covadonga, Cochrane, Thetis, Angamos y Amazonas en Pisagua 1879". archivo.mmn.cl.

Bibliography

Ballard, G. A. (1938). "British Corvettes of 1875: The Larger Ram-Bowed Type". Mariner's Mirror. 24 (January). Cambridge, UK: Society for Nautical Research: 81–94.
Chesneau, Roger; Kolesnik, Eugene M., eds. (1979). Conway's All the World's Fighting Ships 1860-1905. Greenwich, UK: Conway Maritime Press. ISBN 0-8317-0302-4.
Winfield, R.; Lyon, D. (2004). The Sail and Steam Navy List: All the Ships of the Royal Navy 1815–1889. London: Chatham Publishing. ISBN 978-1-86176-032-6. OCLC 52620555.