HMS Diadem (1782)
Diadem at the capture of the Cape of Good Hope by Thomas Whitcombe.
HMS Diadem was a John Williams designed, Intrepid Class, 64 gun, third rate ship of the line, built at Chatham by M/shipwright Israel Pownoll until the April of 1779, and then completed by Nicholas Phillips. Ordered on the 5th of December 1777, she was laid down in the February of 1778, and launched on 19 December 1782, and completed there on the 19th of July 1783 for use as a guardship.
History GREAT BRITAIN Name: HMS Diadem Ordered: 5 December 1777 Builder: Chatham Dockyard Laid down: 2 November 1778 Launched: 19 December 1782 Commissioned: March 1783 Honours and
awards:
- Participated in Battle of Cape St Vincent
- Naval General Service Medal with clasp "Egypt"
Fate: Broken up at Plymouth, September 1832
General characteristicsClass and type: Intrepid Class 64 gun ship of the line Tons burthen: 1375½ (bm) Length: 159 ft 10 in (48.72 m) (gundeck) Beam: 44 ft 5 in (13.54 m) Depth of hold: 19 ft (5.8 m) Propulsion: Sails Sail plan: Full rigged ship Complement: 500 Armament:
- Gundeck: 26 × 24-pounder guns
- Upper gundeck: 26 × 18-pounder guns
- QD: 10 × 4-pounder guns
- Fc: 2 × 9-pounder guns
Service.
HMS Diadem was commissioned in the March of 1783 to serve as a guardship at Chatham, and then at Plymouth from 1784 where her copper was repaired at a cost of £1.547.3.4d. Following the work she was recommissioned in the February of 1793 under Captain Andrew |Southerland, and sailed for the Med on the 15th of October in that year.
She took part in the Toulon operations during the latter part of 93, and into 1794.
In 1795 she came under the command of Captain Charles Taylor and was in Hotham’s action off Genoa on the 13th of March, during which action she suffered 3 killed and 7 wounded.
On the 13th of July she was in action again, this time off the Hyeres.
In 1796 she was transferred to Nelson’s squadron under Captain George Henry Towry off Genoa in the April of 1796,and then as Nelson’s Flagship at Leghorn in the August of that year. It was under Captain Towry that
she participated in the Battle of St. Vincent on the 14th of February 1797, during which she suffered 2 killed and 7 wounded. From this action she moved onto the blockade of Cadiz in the April of that same year.
In 1798 she was converted to serve as a Troopship at Plymouth for £7,412. Recommissioned under Captain John Dawson in 1799, on the 7th of April she left Portsmouth together with Trompe. They were to carry the West York militia to Dublin.
In 1800 under the command of Post Captain Sir Thomas Livingstone she was employed in the Quiberon operation
and also at Belle Isle under Sir Edward Pellew.
In 1801 under Captain John Larmoor she was with Lord Keith’s squadron in the Med, and employed in the expedition to Cadiz. She also took part ain the landings at Aboukir on the 8th of March 1801.
Because Diadem served in the navy's Egyptian campaign between the 8th of March, 1801 and the 2nd of September, her officers and crew qualified for the clasp "Egypt" to the Naval General Service Medal that the Admiralty authorised in 1850 to all surviving claimants.
The ship, paid off at Woolwich April 1802.
Following a small to middling repair at Woolwich between the April of 1804 and the January of 1805, she was recommissioned under Captain Home Popham for Channel service. In the May of that year she came under the command of Captain Charles Grant and then in the January of 1806 Captain Hugh Downman as the Flagship of the now Rear Admiral Popham. She was with him at both the capture of the Cape of Good Hope, and then the River Plate operations. On the 30th of July in that year she took the Spanish Brig Arrogante off Montevideo, Later in the year under Captain Samuel Warren she became the Flagship of Rear Admiral Charles Sterling for further operations in the region of the River Plate.
On her return to England, between the April and July of 1810 Diadem was at Chatham being fitted for service as a troopship of 28 guns. In June she recommissioned under Captain John Phillimore for Lisbon. She then spent some time working with the Spanish anti-French forces on the north coast of Spain. In the January of 1812 she carried released Danish prisoners of war from Plymouth to Chatham. She then sailed to North America. On the 7th of October in that year, Diadem captured the American privateer Baltimore.
Later, she sailed to the Halifax station. Phillimore transferred to command of HMS Eurotas on the 4th of May, 1813 and Diadem came under the command of Captain John Hanchett. On the 22nd of June her boats were involved in an attack on Norfolk Virginia.
Fate.
By the December of 1814 she was back in England and paid off at Plymouth. Fitted there as a receiving ship in the following year, and then as a troopship once more between the years 1822 and 1825, she reverted to her role as a receiving ship in the latter part of that year.
Diadem was broken up at Plymouth in the September of 1832.
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