Birkenhead HMS

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History

Name: HMS Birkenhead
Namesake: Vulcan, Birkenhead
Builder: John Laird shipyard, Birkenhead
Launched: 30 December 1845
Christened: HMS Vulcan
Renamed: HMS Birkenhead, 1845
Reclassified: Troopship, 1851[1]
Fate: Wrecked, 26 February 1852 at Gansbaai

General characteristics

Class and type: Frigate, later troopship
Tonnage: 1400 bm[2]
Displacement: 1918 tons as designed (2000 tons loaded[1])
Length: 210 ft (64 m)[1]
Beam: 37 ft 6 in (11 m)[1]
Draught: 15 ft 9 in (5 m)[1]
Propulsion: Sail, plus 2× Forrester & Co 564 hp (421 kW) steam engines[1] driving two 6 m (20 ft) diameter paddle wheels.
Sail plan: Brig, later barquentine
Speed: 10 knots (19 km/h)[1] as a troopship
Complement: 125
Armament: 2 × 96-pounder pivot guns; 4× 68-pounder broadside guns[clarification needed]
Notes: Iron hull; renamed HMS Birkenhead before commissioning.
HMS Birkenhead, also referred to as HM Troopship Birkenhead or Steam Frigate Birkenhead,[3] was one of the first iron-hulled ships built for the Royal Navy.[4] She was designed as a steam frigate, but was converted to a troopship before being commissioned.[1]
She was wrecked on 26 February 1852, while transporting troops to Algoa Bay at Danger Point near Gansbaai, 87 miles (140 kilometres) from Cape Town in the Cape Colony. There were not enough serviceable lifeboats for all the passengers, and the soldiers famously stood firm on board, thereby allowing the women and children to board the boats safely and escape the sinking. Only 193 of the estimated 643 people on board survived, and the soldiers' chivalry gave rise to the unofficial "women and children first" protocol when abandoning ship, while the "Birkenhead drill" of Rudyard Kipling's poem came to describe courage in face of hopeless circumstances.