HMS Hector (1774)

Royal Oak-class ship of the line

HMS Hector was a 74-gun third rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy, launched on 27 May 1774 at Deptford.^[2]

Career

HMS Hector and Bristol in distress during the Great Hurricane of 1780

On 10 January 1778 she captured French merchant ship "Thomas Koulican" (or Kouli Kan) at (46°00′N 09°00′W / 46.000°N 9.000°W / 46.000; -9.000).^[3]On 9 May 1801 Hector, Kent, and Cruelle unsuccessfully chased the French corvette Heliopolis, which eluded them and slipped into Alexandria.^[4]

Because Hector served in the navy's Egyptian campaign (8 March to 8 September 1801), her officers and crew qualified for the clasp "Egypt" to the Naval General Service Medal that the Admiralty authorised in 1850 for all surviving claimants.^{[Note 1]}

Fate

Hector was converted for use as a prison ship in 1808, and was broken up in 1816.^[2]

Notes

1. A first-class share of the prize money awarded in April 1823 was worth £34 2s 4d; a fifth-class share, that of a seaman, was worth 3s 11½d. The amount was small as the total had to be shared between 79 vessels and the entire army contingent.^[5]

Citations

1. "No. 21077". The London Gazette. 15 March 1850. pp. 791–792.
2. Lavery, Ships of the Line vol.1, p179.
3. "NAVAL DOCUMENTS OF The American Revolution" (PDF). history.navy.mil. Retrieved 23 November 2021.
4. James (1837), p.93.
5. "No. 17915". The London Gazette. 3 April 1823. p. 633.

References

• James, William (1837). The Naval History of Great Britain, from the Declaration of War by France in 1793, to the Accession of George IV. R. Bentley.
• Lavery, Brian (2003) The Ship of the Line - Volume 1: The development of the battlefleet 1650-1850. Conway Maritime Press. ISBN 0-85177-252-8.

External links

• Media related to HMS Hector (ship, 1774) at Wikimedia Commons