HMS Dido (1869)
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HMS Dido circa. 1871
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| History | |
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 United Kingdom
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| Name: | HMS Dido |
| Namesake: | Dido |
| Builder: | Portsmouth Dockyard |
| Launched: | 23 October 1869 |
| Completed: | 20 April 1871 |
| Decommissioned: | Lent to the War Dept as a hulk, 1886 |
| Renamed: | HMS Actaeon II, 1906 |
| Fate: | Sold for scrap, 17 July 1922 |
| General characteristics (as built) | |
| Class and type: | Eclipse-class wooden screw sloop (later corvette) |
| Displacement: | 1,760 long tons (1,790 t) |
| Tons burthen: | 1,268 bm |
| Length: | 212 ft (64.6 m) (p/p) |
| Beam: | 36 ft (11.0 m) |
| Draught: | 16 ft 6 in (5.0 m) |
| Depth: | 21 ft 6 in (6.6 m) |
| Installed power: | 2,518 ihp (1,878 kW) |
| Propulsion: |
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| Sail plan: | Ship rig |
| Speed: | 13 knots (24 km/h; 15 mph) |
| Complement: | 180 |
| Armament: |
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HMS Dido was an Eclipse-class wooden screw sloop built for the Royal Navy in 1869. She was the fourth ship of the Royal Navy to bear the name. She was reclassified in 1876 as a corvette, and in 1906 renamed Actaeon II. She served as a mine depot ship and was merged into the Torpedo School at Sheerness, being sold for breaking in 1922.
Designed by Edward Reed, the Royal Navy Director of Naval Construction, the hull was of wooden construction, with iron cross beams. A ram bow was fitted.
Propulsion was provided by a two-cylinder horizontal single-expansion steam engine by Humphrys, Tennant & Company driving a single screw.
All the ships of the class were built with a ship rig, but this was altered to a barque rig.
The Eclipse class was designed with two 7-inch (6½-ton) muzzle-loading rifled guns mounted in traversing slides and four 64-pounder muzzle-loading rifled guns. They were re-classified as corvettes in 1876, carrying 12 guns.
Dido was launched at Portsmouth Dockyard on 23 October 1869 and commissioned into the Royal Navy on 20 April 1871 for service on the West Coast of Africa, leaving England on 6 May.
Dido called at Madeira, arriving at Sierra Leone on 9 June. She relieved HMS Sirius at Fernando Po on 16 July. The Times of Thursday 8 June 1876 tells the story of her next adventure:
In December 1871 Dido arrived at Simonstown, where Captain Chapman was to act as the Senior Officer during the absence of the Commodore on the West Coast. Five months later, on 16 May 1872, she left the Cape for Sydney, having been ordered to join the Australian Station.
On her way to Sydney Dido paused at St. Paul's, where the remains of Megaera were still to be seen. She arrived at Sydney on 3 July 1872, and then spent nine months in New Zealand, followed by a journey to Fiji in February 1873. The islands of Fiji were in a state of chaos, with the relationship between the government of King Cakabau and the European settlers brought to crisis point by the murder of the Burns family. The Times relates what happened:
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