List of corvette and sloop classes of the Royal Navy

This is a list of corvette and sloop classes of the Royal Navy. The original term for ships of fewer than 28 (carriage) guns, but at least 20 guns, was "post ship"; the term 'corvette' was not introduced into the Royal Navy until the 1830s (when the French term was copied), and at that time its use replaced both the larger sloops and also what had previously been categorised officially as 'post ships', i.e. ships of 20, 22 or 24 guns (vessels of 28 guns and above were classed as 'frigates' until 1817, thereafter ships of up to 32 guns were also counted as sixth rates) which were so-called because they were the lowest grade of warship which could be commanded by a 'post captain'; as such, they formed the lower portion of the sixth rate.

In 1887, both frigates and corvettes were merged into a new category of 'cruiser'. In 1937, escort sloops were officially re-rated as escort vessels and patrol sloops as patrol vessels, although the traditional term continued in use. In 1948 surviving sloops and corvettes were redesignated as frigates.

Note that vessels captured from other countries and incorporated into the Royal Navy are not included in the following lists.

This section lists the 'post ships' of 20 to 24 guns (after 1817, up to 28 guns) which in the 1830s would be merged with the larger sloops to form the new category of corvette. From 1817 the upper limit (in terms of numbers of guns) would be raised to 28 guns.

After more than half a century, the category of corvette was revived during WW2 to describe a smaller form of escort vessel than the existing sloops. It was thus not comparable with the pre-1887 corvettes in the Royal Navy. Two classes of wartime corvette were designed and built in considerable numbers (see separate articles):

Note that early sloops were single-masted, including (initially) the Swift, Jamaica and Hazard groups listed below for 1700–1711; however, all surviving sloops by 1716 had been re-rigged as two-masted, and all new sloops continued to be two-masted until the 1750s, when three-masted - ship-rigged - sloops were introduced.

All early two-masted sloops were mainly either ketch-rigged or snow-rigged.

From the outbeak of the War of Jenkins' Ear in 1739, the Navy recognised that there was a growing need for smaller vessels for amphibious operations, as escorts for commercial traffic and for minor combatant roles. Over the next six years, some 36 specialist vessels were procured (34 designed by the Navy and 2 purchased on the stocks where builders had begun them as speculative ventures), as listed below; of these, the first four were essentially repeats of the previous group of 200-ton sloops of 1732, while the later vessels were progressively enlarged. In addition, a small number were captured from the Spanish during this era, and a dozen bomb vessels of similar construction supplemented the purpose-built sloops in a cruising role.

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