HMS Conway (school ship)
HMS Conway at Rock Ferry
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| History | |
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| Name: | HMS Conway |
| Fate: | Wrecked 1953 |
| General characteristics *1857 - 1861 | |
| Class and type: | Conway-class corvette |
| Tons burthen: | 651 74/94 bm |
| Length: |
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| Beam: | 34 ft 5 in (10.49 m) |
| Sail plan: | Full-rigged ship |
General characteristics *1861 - 1875
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| Class and type: | Southampton-class frigate |
| Tons burthen: | 1,468 11/94 bm (as designed) |
| Length: |
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| Beam: | 44 ft 3.25 in (13 m) |
| Depth of hold: | 14 ft 6 in (4 m) |
| Sail plan: | Full-rigged ship |
General characteristics *1875 - 1953
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| Class and type: | Rodney-class ship of the line |
| Tons burthen: | 2598 bm |
| Length: | 205 ft 6 in (62.64 m) (gundeck) |
| Beam: | 54 ft 5 in (16.59 m) |
| Depth of hold: | 23 ft 2 in (7.06 m) |
| Sail plan: | Full-rigged ship |
| General characteristics 1953 - 1974 | |
| Class and type: | "Stone frigate" at Plas Newydd |
Coordinates: 53°12′14″N 4°13′01″W / 53.204°N 4.217°W
HMS Conway was a naval training school or "school ship", founded in 1859 and housed for most of her life aboard a 19th-century wooden ship of the line. The ship was originally stationed on the Mersey near Liverpool, then moved to the Menai Strait during World War II. While being towed back to Birkenhead for a refit in 1953, she ran aground and was wrecked, and later burned. The school moved to purpose-built premises on Anglesey where it continued for another twenty years.
In the mid-19th century, the demand for a reliable standard of merchant navy officers had grown to the point where ship owners decided to set up an organisation to train, and indeed educate, them properly—the Mercantile Marine Service Association.
One of the first sites chosen for a school ship was Liverpool, in 1857. The ship they chose to accommodate the school, to be provided by the Admiralty and moored in the Sloyne, off Rock Ferry on the River Mersey, was the corvette HMS Conway. There were to be three Conways over the years, the name being transferred to the new ship each time it was replaced. In 1861 HMS Winchester took the name, but the one that housed the school for most of its life was lent by the Royal Navy to the Mercantile Marine Service Association in 1875. This was the two-decker Nile, a 92-gun second-rate line-of-battle ship. She was 205 ft (62.5 m) long on the gundeck, 54 ft (16 m) in beam, and displaced 4,375 long tons. During her operational life she was equipped with ten 8-inch (200 mm) guns and eighty-two 30-pounders. Launched in June 1839, she was entirely built from West African hardwoods and copper fastened, with copper sheathing anti-fouling to her under parts. She had survived the Baltic Blockade during the Crimean War, later protecting British possessions in the Caribbean and 'showing the flag' along the eastern seaboard of North America 50 years after the British surrender at Yorktown. In 1876 she was renamed Conway and moored on the Mersey.
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Wikipedia