HMS Cambridge was an 80-gun third rate ship of the line

Ship of the line

A ship of the line was a type of naval warship constructed from the 17th through the mid-19th century to take part in the naval tactic known as the line of battle, in which two columns of opposing warships would manoeuvre to bring the greatest weight of broadside guns to bear...

 of the Royal Navy

Royal Navy

The Royal Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Founded in the 16th century, it is the oldest service branch and is known as the Senior Service...

, launched on 23 June 1815 at Deptford Dockyard. She was built to the lines of the Danish

Denmark

Denmark is a Scandinavian country in Northern Europe. The countries of Denmark and Greenland, as well as the Faroe Islands, constitute the Kingdom of Denmark . It is the southernmost of the Nordic countries, southwest of Sweden and south of Norway, and bordered to the south by Germany. Denmark...

 ship Christian VII, which had been captured in 1807 at the Second Battle of Copenhagen

Battle of Copenhagen (1807)

The Second Battle of Copenhagen was a British preemptive attack on Copenhagen, targeting the civilian population in order to seize the Dano-Norwegian fleet and in turn originate the term to Copenhagenize.-Background:Despite the defeat and loss of many ships in the first Battle of Copenhagen in...

.

Service

She saw little action early in her life, due to the end of the Napoleonic Wars

Napoleonic Wars

The Napoleonic Wars were a series of wars declared against Napoleon's French Empire by opposing coalitions that ran from 1803 to 1815. As a continuation of the wars sparked by the French Revolution of 1789, they revolutionised European armies and played out on an unprecedented scale, mainly due to...

. However, in the journal of Thomas Reed Stavers, she is recorded as being at Callao Roads, under Captain Thomas Maling, on 3 July and on 4/5 September 1824, on the latter occasion sailing from Callao to 'the Island of Lorenzo

Lorenzo

Lorenzo may refer to:People:* Lorenzo , including a list of people with the given name or surname LorenzoPlaces:* San Lorenzo, California, formerly Lorenzo* Lorenzo, Texas...

' to avoid attacks by a Spanish gun boat.

Letters in the Foreign Office (FO 16/1) show that she sailed to the Americas under Captain Maling in 1823. Aboard was the first British diplomatic delegation to Chile: R. Nuggent, Henry William Rouse and Matthew Carter.

By January 1840 she was out of commission at Sheerness

Sheerness

Sheerness is a town located beside the mouth of the River Medway on the northwest corner of the Isle of Sheppey in north Kent, England. With a population of 12,000 it is the largest town on the island....

, but on 31 January that year she was commissioned

Ship commissioning

Ship commissioning is the act or ceremony of placing a ship in active service, and may be regarded as a particular application of the general concepts and practices of project commissioning. The term is most commonly applied to the placing of a warship in active duty with its country's military...

 there under Captain Edward Barnard and from then until 26 January 1843 served as the head of a naval squadron in the Mediterranean. This squadron's actions included operations in the eastern Mediterranean on the coast of Syria

Syria

Syria , officially the Syrian Arab Republic , is a country in Western Asia, bordering Lebanon and the Mediterranean Sea to the West, Turkey to the north, Iraq to the east, Jordan to the south, and Israel to the southwest....

, a bombardment of Beirut

Beirut

Beirut is the capital and largest city of Lebanon, with a population ranging from 1 million to more than 2 million . Located on a peninsula at the midpoint of Lebanon's Mediterranean coastline, it serves as the country's largest and main seaport, and also forms the Beirut Metropolitan...

 on 10 September, and blockading Alexandria

Alexandria

Alexandria is the second-largest city of Egypt, with a population of 4.1 million, extending about along the coast of the Mediterranean Sea in the north central part of the country; it is also the largest city lying directly on the Mediterranean coast. It is Egypt's largest seaport, serving...

, all as part of the 1840 combined Ottoman

Ottoman Empire

The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...

-British

United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland was the formal name of the United Kingdom during the period when what is now the Republic of Ireland formed a part of it....

 campaign against Mehmet Ali.

Fate

On her return, she was again decommissioned and in ordinary

Reserve fleet

A reserve fleet is a collection of naval vessels of all types that are fully equipped for service but are not currently needed, and thus partially or fully decommissioned. A reserve fleet is informally said to be "in mothballs" or "mothballed"; an equivalent expression in unofficial modern U.S....

 at Devonport

HMNB Devonport

Her Majesty's Naval Base Devonport , is one of three operating bases in the United Kingdom for the Royal Navy . HMNB Devonport is located in Devonport, in the west of the city of Plymouth in Devon, England...

, until on 9 August 1856 when she was re-commissioned as 'the gunnery ship at Plymouth

Plymouth

Plymouth is a city and unitary authority area on the coast of Devon, England, about south-west of London. It is built between the mouths of the rivers Plym to the east and Tamar to the west, where they join Plymouth Sound...

', under Captain Richard Strode Hewlett. In this role she saw four more captains (3 January 1857—1 April 1862 Arthur William Jerningham; 1 April 1862—20 April 1863 Captain Leopold George Heath

Leopold Heath

Vice Admiral Sir Leopold George Heath KCB was a Royal Navy officer who went on to be Commander-in-Chief, East Indies Station.-Naval career:...

; 20 April 1863—May 1867 Charles Joseph Frederick Ewart; May 1867—January 1869 Fitzgerald Algernon Charles Foley) before being scrapped in 1869. HMS Windsor Castle

HMS Windsor Castle (1858)

HMS Windsor Castle was a triple-decker, 102-gun first-rate Royal Navy ship of the line. She was renamed HMS Cambridge in 1869, when she replaced a ship of the same name as gunnery ship off Plymouth.-Early life:...

was renamed HMS Cambridge and replaced her as the gunnery ship.

External links

• http://www.plymouthdata.info/Royal%20Naval%20Gunnery%20School.htm
• http://www.nmm.ac.uk/collections/prints/viewPrint.cfm?ID=PAD6111
• http://www.nmm.ac.uk/collections/prints/viewPrint.cfm?ID=PAF8024
• http://www.pdavis.nl/ShowShip.php?id=1195