HMS Mercury

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

HMS Mercury (1779) cutting out a French gunboat from Rovigno, 1 April 1809

18 gun ordnance store ship Mercury, Lieut. Heighington R.N. breaking the blockade of Gibraltar in 1782

Ships

• HMS Mercury (1592) was a 6-gun galley launched in 1592 and sold in 1611.
• HMS Mercury (1620) was a ship launched in 1620. Her fate is unknown.
• HMS Mercury (1622) was a ship purchased in 1622. Her fate is unknown.
• HMS Mercury (1694) was a 6-gun advice boat launched in 1694 and captured by a French privateer in 1697.
• HMS Mercury (1739) was an 8-gun fireship purchased in 1739 and foundered in 1744.
• HMS Mercury (1744) was a 16-gun brigantine launched in 1744 and captured in 1745.
• HMS Mercury (1745) was a 24-gun sixth rate launched in 1745 and broken up in 1753.
• HMS Mercury (1756) was a 20-gun sixth rate launched in 1756 and wrecked in 1777.
• HMS Mercury (1760) was an unrated schooner in service 1760–65.
• HMS Mercury (1779) was a 28-gun sixth rate launched in 1779 and broken up in 1814.
• HMS Mercure (1798) was an 18-gun sloop. She was formerly a French privateer that Phaeton and Anson captured in 1798. She was renamed HMS Trompeuse in 1799 and foundered in 1800.
• HMS Mercury (1807) was a tender launched in 1807 and broken up in 1835.
• HMS Mercury (1826) was a 46-gun fifth rate launched in 1826, used as a coal hulk from 1861 and sold in 1906.
• HMS Mercury (1837) was a cutter tender launched in 1837, renamed YC6 in 1866, HMS Plymouth in 1876, and sold in 1904.
• HMS Mercury (1878) was an Iris-class cruiser and despatch vessel launched in 1878, converted to a depot ship in 1906, and sold in 1919. She was to have been named HMS Columbine in 1912, but this did not happen.
• HMS Mercury (1892) was an auxiliary minesweeper sunk during World War I.
• HMS Mercury (1934) was a paddle steamer requisition during World War II for use as an auxiliary minesweeper which struck a mine and sank in 1940.

School

HMS Mercury (shore establishment) was a Royal Naval Communications/Signal School sited at Leydene House near Petersfield, Hampshire, in commission from 1941 until 1993. A subsidiary (HMS Mercury II) was also created.

See also

• HCS Mercury (1806), a 14-gun brig launched at Bombay Dockyard in 1806 for the naval arm of the British East India Company and lost at sea in 1833.
• Mercury (1806 ship) or Mercury Packet, launched at Calcutta in 1806 and sold at Java in 1822.
• TS Mercury, a naval training establishment until 1968 at Hamble in Hampshire, founded as a ship in 1885.

References

• Colledge, J. J.; Warlow, Ben (2006) [1969]. Ships of the Royal Navy: The Complete Record of all Fighting Ships of the Royal Navy (Rev. ed.). London: Chatham Publishing. ISBN 978-1-86176-281-8.