Sixteen ships of the Royal Navy have been named HMS Success, whilst another was planned:
HMS Success was a 32-gun Amazon-class fifth-rate frigate of the British Royal Navy launched in 1781, which served during the American Revolutionary, French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. The French captured her in the Mediterranean on 13 February 1801, but she was recaptured by the British on 2 September. She continued to serve in the Mediterranean until 1811, and in North America until hulked in 1814, then serving as a prison ship and powder hulk, before being broken up in 1820.
The ship, based on a design by Sir John Williams,Surveyor of the Navy, was ordered by the Admiralty on 22 February 1779, and built at Liverpool by John Sutton, being laid down on 8 May 1779, and launched 10 April 1781.
Success was commissioned in March 1781 under the command of Captain Charles Morice Pole, to serve in the American Revolutionary War, where she made several captures. The first, on 12 August 1781, was in company with Daphne, when they took the Spanish merchant ship St. Sebastian. Then, on 2 October, Success, Daphne, and the cutter Cruizer, captured the French privateer Eclair. The following year, in the action of 16 March 1782, while escorting the storeship Vernon to Gibraltar, Success fought, captured, and burned the 34-gun Spanish frigate Santa Catalina off Cape Spartel. On 20 June 1782 she sailed with a convoy for Jamaica, and on 3 October 1782 Success and the cutter Pigmy captured the ship Vrouw Margaretha.Success was paid off in November 1783, following the end of the war.
HMS Success was an Atholl-class 28-gun sixth-rate wooden sailing ship notable for exploring Western Australia and the Swan River in 1827 as well as being one of the first ships to arrive at the fledgling Swan River Colony two years later, at which time she ran aground off Carnac Island.
Her keel was laid at Pembroke Dock in August 1823 and she was launched on 31 August 1825. She was 114 ft long (35 m) and 32 ft wide (9.8 m), and was a sixth-rate ship with 28 guns, including twenty 32-pounders.
She was sent by the Royal Navy on a mission to New South Wales and Melville Island. She made an expedition to the Swan River in 1827, arriving there in early March. Captain James Stirling was in command. There is a record of the expedition, An account of the expedition of H.M.S. 'Success', Captain James Stirling, RN., from Sydney, to the Swan River, in 1827 by Augustus Gilbert. Another account The visit of Charles Fraser (the colonial botanist of New South Wales) : to the Swan River in 1827, with his opinion on the suitableness of the district for a settlement was published in 1832.