HMS Britannia (1762)
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HMS Britannia (1762) was a British Royal Navy 100-gun 1st rate ship of the line.
She was ordered on 28 March 1751 from Portsmouth Dockyard. Her keel was laid down 1 July 1751 and she was launched 19 October 1762, her total cost of building and fitting totalling £45,844.2.8d. As built, she measured 178ft 0in on the gundeck and 145ft 2in on the keel, with a breadth of 52ft 0.5in and a depth in hold of 21ft 6in, producing a tonnage of 2,091 26/94 tons. She was established with a complement of 850 officers and men, and 100 guns comprising 28 x 42-pounders on her lower deck (later replaced by 32-pounders), 28 x 24-pounders on her middle deck, 28 x 12-pounders on the upper deck, and initially 12 x 6-pounders on the quarterdeck and 4 x 6-pounders on the forecastle. In the 1790s ten of the quarterdeck guns and two of the forecastle guns were replaced by the same number of 32-pounder carronades.
The Britannia was first commissioned in September 1778 and saw service during the War of American Independence. From 1793–1795 she was the flagship of Vice-Admiral Hotham. She fought at the Battle of Cape St. Vincent (1797) and at the Battle of Trafalgar, where she carried the flag of Rear-Admiral of the White William Carnegie (1756-1831), Earl of Northesk. She lost 10 men killed and 42 wounded at Trafalgar, and following that battle she was laid up in Reserve in the Hamoaze at Plymouth in 1806.
The ship was renamed on 6 January 1812 as HMS Princess Royal, then on 18 January 1812 as HMS St. George and on 2 June 1819 as HMS Barfleur.
Source: British Warships in the Age of Sail: 1793 - 1817, Rif Winfield, Chatham Publishing, London, 2005.
She was third of seven ships to bear the name Britannia, and was broken up at Plymouth in February 1825.
She was known as 'Old Ironsides' long before USS Constitution was.
See HMS Britannia for other ships with the same name.
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