HMS Wolverine (1863)

HMS Wolverine, Sydney, July 1881.
History
Name:	HMS Wolverine (also HMS Wolverene)
Builder:	Woolwich Dockyard
Laid down:	14 April 1859
Launched:	29 August 1863
Fate:	Given to Colony of New South Wales.
Name:	Wolverine
Owner:	Colony of New South Wales
Homeport:	Sydney
Fate:	Sold to Peter Ellison, Sydney for £2200.
Name:	Wolverine
Fate:	Scrapped and hulk burnt.
General characteristics
Type:	Jason-class corvette
Displacement:	2,416 tons (as completed)
Tons burthen:	1,703 bm
Length:	225 ft 0 in (68.6 m) (gundeck) 196 ft 8 1⁄2 in (60.0 m) (keel)
Beam:	40 ft 8 in (12.4 m) (overall)
Draught:	17 ft 11 in (5.5 m) (forward) 20 ft 4 in (6.2 m) (aft)
Depth of hold:	24 ft 2 in (7.4 m)
Installed power:	400 nominal horsepower 1,628 indicated horsepower (1,214 kW)
Propulsion:	2-cylinder horizontal single-expansion engine 4 × boilers 4 × furnaces Single screw
Sail plan:	Full-rigged ship
Speed:	11.3 knots (20.9 km/h)
Complement:	c.250
Armament:	20 × 8-inch (68pdr/65cwt) muzzle-loading smoothbore broadside guns 1 × pivot-mounted 7-inch (110-pdr/82cwt) Armstrong breech loader

HMS Wolverine (also HMS Wolverene) was a Jason-class three-masted wooden screw corvette, of the Royal Navy. Later she became flagship of the Australia Station, eventually being presented to the Colony of New South Wales as a training ship for the New South Wales Naval Brigade and New South Wales Naval Artillery Volunteers.

HMS Wolverine was built at the Woolwich Dockyard and launched at Woolwich on 29 August 1863. After serving in the North America and West Indies Station in the 1860s, she was commissioned as the flagship of the Australia Station on 7 September 1875, under the command of Commodore Anthony Hoskins. In 1880, Francis Pringle Taylor was appointed lieutenant in command, a position he held until 1884.

During its service Wolverine was present for the Royal Navy's Detached Squadron world cruise in 1881 when the princes Albert and George undertook naval training. The Wolverine left Sydney Harbour at the same time as the Detached Squadron on 10 August 1881, with Commodore John Wilson, Commander-in-Chief of the Australia Station, her destination being Brisbane and then New Guinea. The scientist Nicholas Miklouho-Maclay travelled to New Guinea on this voyage where, aided by the Rev. James Chalmers, he intervened with the Commodore to stop the destruction of the entire native village of Kalo in reprisal for the recent murder of some missionaries there.