HMS Mercury (1878)

HMS Mercury was an Iris-class second class cruiser of the Royal Navy. The two ships of the class were the first all steel ships in the Royal Navy. She was distinguished from Iris by her straight bow, which gave her a slightly shorter length of 315 feet (96 m). The ship carried a complement of 275 officers and men.

Mercury was laid down at Pembroke Dockyard on 16 March 1876, launched on 17 April 1878 and completed on 18 September 1879. Originally equipped with a light barque rig, her sails were soon removed and the class became the first "mastless cruisers". She had an "unprecedented amount of space taken up with machinery", but was thought of so highly that she was rearmed three times during her service.

Mercury served with the Portsmouth Reserve from 1879 to 1890, in China from 1890 to 1895 and with the Portsmouth Reserve again from 1895 to 1903. She served as a navigation school ship for navigating officers from 1903 to 1905 and a submarine depot ship at Portsmouth from 1906 to 1913, and at Harwich in 1913. There were plans to rename her Columbine in 1912, but these were rescinded and instead she was hulked at Rosyth in 1914 with the port depot ship there, HMS Columbine, the former HMS Wild Swan. She was moved to Chatham, where she became an accommodation ship from 7 January 1918, and was paid off in March 1919. She was eventually sold for scrap to the Forth Shipbreaking Company, at Bo'ness, on 9 July 1919.

HMS Mercury

Eighteen ships of the Royal Navy have borne the name HMS Mercury, or HMS Mercure, after the God Mercury, of Roman mythology:

HMS Mercury (shore establishment)

HMS Mercury was a shore establishment of the Royal Navy, and the site of the Royal Navy Signals School and Combined Signals School. There was also a subsidiary branch, HMS Mercury II.

Establishment and history

The school was established at Leydene House, East Meon, near Petersfield, Hampshire, England and was commissioned as HMS Mercury on 16 August 1941 under the command of Captain Gerald Warner. A signalling school had been established at HM Barracks, Portsmouth in 1904 and was transferred to Petersfield during the Second World War. Extensions were also established at a number of other sites, including Bristol, Cambridge and Liss. In November 1943 a wireless telegraphy school was established at St. Bede's Prep School, Eastbourne, and a WRNS training establishment at Soberton Towers. The base went on to house both the Communications and Navigations faculties of the Royal Navy's School of Maritime Operations (SMOPS). The school trained generations of Royal Navy Communicators and Navigators until 31 August 1993 when the establishment was decommissioned. At the time of its closure, HMS Mercury was home to the Communications and Navigations Faculties of the Royal Navy's School of Maritime Operations and the Special Communications Unit (SCU), Leydene. SCU, Leydene became an independent establishment on 1 September 1995.

HMS Mercury (1779)

HMS Mercury was a 28-gun Enterprise-class sixth-rate frigate of the Royal Navy. She was built during the American War of Independence and serving during the later years of that conflict. She continued to serve during the years of peace and had an active career during the French Revolutionary and most of the Napoleonic Wars, until being broken up in 1814.

Construction and commissioning

Mercury was ordered from Peter Mestaer, at the King and Queen Shipyard, Rotherhithe on the River Thames on 22 January 1778 and was laid down there on 25 March. She was launched on 9 December 1779 and was completed by 24 February 1780 after being fitted out at Deptford Dockyard. £6,805 7s 0d was paid to her builder for her construction, with the total including fitting and coppering subsequently rising to £13,603 8s 0d.Mercury entered service in 1780, having been commissioned in October 1779 under Captain Isaac Prescott.

American War of Independence and the interwar years

Prescott sailed Mercury to Newfoundland in April 1780. On 23 July she returned from a cruise, having, on the 19th, retaken the ship Elizabeth, which the 32-gun American privateer Dean had taken a few days earlier.Elizabeth was of 240 tons burthen, armed with 14 guns but with only 10 crewmen. When first taken she had been sailing from London to Newfoundland with a cargo of salt.