HMS President

Five ships and one shore establishment of the Royal Navy have been named HMS President, after the office of president meaning "one who presides over an assembly". In the case of the first two British ships, the name may have applied to the Lord President of the Privy Council.

This ship-name lapsed from 1660 to 1806, when it was revived by the capture of the French frigate Président, and then perpetuated by the 1815 capture of the American super-frigate USS President. These captures were commemorated by a new *HMS President, which survived from 1829 till 1903, and which passed the name to a series of Presidents of which three survive to this day.

HMS President (1829)

HMS President was ordered in May 1818 to be built as a 58-gun frigate to the exact lines of the previous President, captured from the Americans in January 1815; this prize ship was re-classed as a 60-gun fourth rate in February 1817 but was taken to pieces in June 1818. The new replacement was laid down at Portsmouth Dockyard in June 1824 and launched on 20 April 1829; she was completed in 1830 but not commissioned until February 1832.

Rather than being armed identically to her namesake, her design was amended to complete her as a 52-gun frigate with an unarmed spar deck. She was later re-armed with thirty-two 32-pounder guns on the upper deck, and twenty 32-pounder carronades on the quarterdeck and forecastle.

Service

After her first two years' commission on the North America and West Indies Station, she was refitted between February and May 1834. The years 1835–1838 were spent on the South American station. Thereafter she was at Portsmouth for several years before being fitted out as a flagship in 1845 and sent to the Cape of Good Hope for the next two-year commission.

HMS Bonaventure (1650)

President was a 38-gun fourth rate frigate of the Royal Navy, originally built for the navy of the Commonwealth of England by Peter Pett I at Deptford Dockyard, and launched in 1650.

After the Restoration in 1660, she was renamed HMS Bonaventure after a previous ship that had been blown up three years after she was built in 1653. She was widened in 1663, and by 1677 her armament had been increased to 48 guns. In 1683 she underwent her first rebuild, relaunching as a 40-gun fourth rate ship of the line.Bonaventure was rebuilt a second time in 1699 at Woolwich Dockyard, relaunching as a fourth rate of between 46 and 54 guns. Her third rebuild took place at Chatham Dockyard, where she was rebuilt as a 50-gun fourth rate to the 1706 Establishment, relaunching on 19 September 1711. She was renamed HMS Argyll prior to the Jacobite rising of 1715, and on 27 January 1720 she was ordered to be taken to pieces at Woolwich for what was to be her final rebuild. She was relaunched as a 50-gun fourth rate to the 1719 Establishment on 5 July 1722, and saw much service in home and Atlantic waters. She was employed on blockade duties during the War of the Austrian Succession, and in 1741 Argyll captured five Spanish coasters, and with the assistance of two other warships cut free five captured British warships that were docked in north-western Spain.