Talk:List of ship names of the Royal Navy

Title

I can sort-of see the rationale for the title, but it still seems misleading; the links are to ship articles, some of which have to be disambiguated because there are multiple ships of the same name, so the list is really about the ships and not, say, the origins of their names. Stan 04:07 17 Jun 2003 (UTC)

HMS Legion

Wonderful list, very entertaining. Why are there two HMS Legion? Paul, in Saudi

Resources

If you are writing some of the articles about ship names, this site http://uboat.net/allies/warships/listing.html?navy=HMS has details of pretty much every RN ship during the WW2 period. Follow the ship class down, or search for the name. DJ Clayworth 16:48, 23 Feb 2004 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:WikiProject Ships#Sources for other resources. Gdr 16:02, 2005 Mar 16 (UTC)

HMS Serpent

Anyone: Serpent (disambiguation) has a reference to HMS Serpent, which I don't see on this list. Real ship? Should it be on this list? Thanks. Elf | Talk 19:31, 11 Sep 2004 (UTC)

This list is still incomplete (so I'm lazy; so sue me :-) ). Colledge shows 12 Serpents, first one from 1562, latest one a 1920s destroyer. Stan 20:29, 11 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Another problem with the page is that it is beginning to get the point where it is so big that splitting it into multiple pages is a real possibility. There are still an awful lot of names to add! The same is true of the equivalent USN page. David Newton 14:25, 14 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I continue to waffle about what to do... A single list has the nice property that "related changes" makes a spiffy ship-only watchlist. The next round of major editing ought to result in a complete list, so it ought to be decided. Stan 15:08, 14 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Naming conventions

Is there an established convention for how to date ships? I've just been fixing some redlinks on List of battleships of the Royal Navy, and there seem to be some dated for year of launching, some for year of completion, some for year of commissioning... and these can be several years apart! It's not a terrible problem - the disambiguation page makes it clear which is which - but it does seem to be a bit of an inconsistency. Shimgray 18:35, 9 Nov 2004 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Naming conventions (ships). Gdr 16:02, 2005 Mar 16 (UTC)

List of completed letters in Colledge

This is a list of letters of the alphabet that have been completed in the list from the source book Ships of the Royal Navy by J. J. Colledge. It is an aide memoire to keep track of what needs to be done to the rest of the page. The following letters have been completed:

• A
• B
• C
• D
• E
• F
• G
• H
• I
• J
• K
• L
• M
• N
• O
• P
• Q
• U
• X
• Y
• Z

David Newton 20:23, 14 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Colledge is quite a resource, eh? BTW, one thing I've been doing is adding counts for names with multiple vessels, so that the popular names stand out a bit more. Stan 01:23, 15 Nov 2004 (UTC)

new format is horrible

I much preferred the bulleted list; they all seem to merge into one otherwise and it's difficult to pick individual names out. I hate to think what it's like if you have dyslexia. It should be fairly easy to fix back by running it through Word and replacing some characters with others. Any thoughts? Dunc|☺ 00:17, 16 Nov 2004 (UTC)

• It is shorter this way, but I do agree it's harder to actually find one without doing find-in-page or the like (and if you knew which ship you were looking for, surely you could go direct? - admittedly, this does make this page seem a bit useless). Is it possible to compromise on the wasted-space issue and have two or three columns of names? Shimgray 01:59, 16 Nov 2004 (UTC)

It is worse from a aesthetic POV to use the alternative format. Speaking personally as someone who is dyslexic, I don't find any difficulty difference in reading the two formats, besides the issues a non-dyslexic would have. However, my dyslexia doesn't badly affect my reading. David Newton 23:13, 19 Nov 2004 (UTC)

tidy Destroyers for Bases Agreement

There are a lot of names there. It needs a lot of fiddling with. Some American has put in redirects from e.g. HMS Montgomery to the US destroyer dictioanary page without realising that there might be more than one of them. Dunc|☺ 13:52, 26 Nov 2004 (UTC)

• I've the afternoon free, I'll have a go at it... Shimgray 14:42, 26 Nov 2004 (UTC) edit - ships are now redlinked to "HMS Name (number)" and "HMS Name" is a disambig not a redirect (other ships courtesy of Google and could probably do with someone checking in a reference). Now to transfer the ships themselves over from the "USS Name" pages...
  • Or, now I think about it... hmm. Are they significant enough in themselves to warrant seperate pages for their RN service? This generally only lasted 3-4 years. Shimgray 15:32, 26 Nov 2004 (UTC)
• To Duncharris: I moved the list of ships to the Town class destroyer article which I think is a better place than the article about the agreement. Their names in the Soviet Navy need to be made consistent, but I'm afraid I am wholly ignorant about transliteration from Russian, so someone else will have to do that. To Shimgray: the Town class destroyers' USN service was in peacetime, their RCN or RN service was in wartime. In most cases the RCN/RN service contains all the events of interest, even though it was much shorter. Gdr 20:36, 2004 Dec 14 (UTC)

List all ships?

Would it be worth listing all ships, following a format similar to the one at List of ships of the United States Navy? This would result in entries like

• Valiant (1759, 1807, 1825, 1863, 1914, S102)
• Vanguard (1586, 1631, 1678, 1748, 1787, 1835, 1869, 1909, 1944, S28)
• Victory (1569, 1620, 1737, 1764, 1765)

Would this be useful? It would provide a nice target for "Related changes". But on the other hand it might be a nightmare to maintain. Comments, please. Gdr 03:14, 2004 Dec 17 (UTC)

It is a reasonable idea. However, I'm going to try and complete the list as a whole before even attempting to do that! David Newton 13:20, 19 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Ships not in Colledge

While adding to the list I noticed some names in this article that are missing in Colledge. Names marked "yes" I left in the list; names marked "no" I removed.

• Cambridgeshire — yes, a WW2 anti-submarine trawler, pennant FY142
• Carnarvon Castle — yes, a WW2 armed merchant cruiser, pennant F25
• Chakdina — no, this is probably SS Chakdina, a freighter sunk off Tobruk in 1942 carrying wounded and POWs
• Chantala — no, a merchant vessel
• Cherwell — yes, a WW1 minesweeping trawler, pennant T03. Some sources give Cherwell as the name of the 1903 River class destroyer that Colledge names Charwell.
• Cheshire — yes, a WW2 armed merchant cruiser, pennant F18
• Crested Eagle — no, this is probably the paddle steamer Crested Eagle of the General Steam Navigation Company.
• Erinpura — no, an uncommissioned troop transport [1]
• Fiona — yes, a WW2 armed boarding ship
• Fitzgerald — no; perhaps SS Edmund Fitzgerald is meant?
• Glenearn, Glenroy, Glengyle — yes, WW2 troop landing or fast supply ships (but were they commissioned?)
• Grebe — no, a shore station at Dekheila, Egypt
• Gypsy — yes, Colledge gives only Gipsy but many sources give this spelling
• Largs — yes, WW2 Ocean Boarding Vessel, later Landing Ship Headquarters
• Li Wo — yes, WW2 auxiliary patrol vessel
• Lord Nuffield — yes, WW2 ASW trawler, pennant FY221
• Palomares — yes, WW2 AA auxiliary vessel
• Paramatta — no evidence of a ship of this name
• Pentstemon — no, mispelling of Penstemon
• Petrel — yes, WW2 tug
• Pozarica — yes, WW2 AA auxiliary vessel
• Prince Charles — yes, WW2 landing ship
• Prince Leopold — yes, WW2 landing ship
• Prinses Astrid — yes, WW2 landing ship
• Prinses Beatrix — yes, WW2 troopship

I note that Colledge doesn't list trawlers and merchant cruisers. Should we? Gdr 20:57, 2005 Jan 4 (UTC)

There were actually two volumes of Colledge when it was originally published. The book that was reissued and updated recently just covers the ships of the first volume. Things like trawlers are covered in the second volume. My point of view is that if the vessel was a commissioned warship in the Royal Navy then we should include the name. If not, then we should include it where appropriate, like in the RFA list (which should in itself be complete BTW), or even in potential future lists of Royal Maritime Auxiliary Service and/or Merchant Fleet Auxiliary ships. David Newton 00:49, 5 Jan 2005 (UTC)

HMS George III?

USS Enterprise (1775) notes that it was previously HMS George III; I can't offhand find anything else on that ship as such, though. Is it worth including as a redirect? Shimgray 03:27, 28 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Colledge lists no ship named George III or King George III so perhaps USS Enterprise (1775) is mistaken about the supply ship being in commission. Gdr 13:28, 2005 Mar 16 (UTC)

See Talk:USS Enterprise (1775) for further research. Gdr 12:44, 2005 Mar 29 (UTC)

Possible new format

From wikien-l today, a rather clever little hack that's useful for lists:

This code has worked quite well so far, so I'd like to
promote its further use on any page with excessive
verticality.
 {| width="100%"
  |- valign=top
  |width="50%"|

  COLUMN 1

  |width="50%"|

  COLUMN 2

  |}

Thoughts on putting it into practice here? I can't see a major downside, since the names we have here are pretty short compared to pagewidths and (as yet) we haven't added anything after them. Shimgray | talk | 13:25, 7 October 2005 (UTC)

This kind of thing adds work for editors. When you add entries you have to rebalance the columns. Gdr 22:50, 7 October 2005 (UTC)

This page is 145k - can it be broken up into smaller lists? HollyAm 17:46, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

What's the problem you're trying to solve? It's quite useful to have the list in one page so that you can search it, or use Special:Recentchangeslinked/List of Royal Navy ship names. Gdr 17:57, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

List too long

This list is much longer than the article limit of 32k, which shows on load and edit. Also, the usual wisdom is to DRY, so why are these list copied? Pick one set and delete the other. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.235.239.109 (talk) 17 September 2006

List of Royal Navy ships in the Pacific Northwest

I would have placed this overleaf, but it's not titled/classed in the same way, so am posting it here for someone else to put in the appropriate place; it's all vessels during the RN presence (or almost all) in the Pacific Northwest/North Pacific in the years before the RN's Esquimalt base on Vancouver Island was handed over to what is now the Canadian Forces (was Royal Canadian Navy before forces merger). As far as installations, there were also an RN drydock and RN Hospital at Esquimalt, and I think Nanoose Bay had been an RN base, and Nanaimo and Fort Rupert had been coaling stations (they'll have articles, I'm just wondering if they should be on the "installations" list). There may have been RN stations on the BC mainland, too, but as yet I'm unaware of them except as legal obscurities; mostly military reserves under the governance of the RN, but no "installation" of the order of the drydock and hospital at Esquimalt.Skookum1 00:35, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

The following discussion is an archived discussion of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the proposal was merge all into this one.--Jorfer 19:12, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Merge

I say we merge all the individual lists into this one.--Jorfer 03:53, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

Is this page redundant?

I am not sure how this page is different from the various lists of Royal Navy ships split up by letter, such as List of Royal Navy ships, J. It seems to me that one of these lists should be gotten rid of; is there something I have missed? I'm new to this page, so I have no idea, but having two separate lists struck me as odd. Hilosoph (Talk) 23:34, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Talk:List of Royal Navy ships, A

The usual wisdom is to DRY, so why are these list copied? Pick one set and delete the other. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.235.239.109 (talk) 17 September 2006

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

HMS Batman

Someone has tagged HMS Batman, perhaps a bit sceptical that such a ship ever existed. Colledge makes it clear though - an iron screw gunboat launched in 1883 and still on the Navy lists in 1895. I'll remove the tag. Benea 20:44, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

Massive overhaul

I hope I have solved some formatting concerns, as I added columns, comments, sorted entry names, reformatted the "P" section. If anyone has a desire to add more ships, it would be nice to post them on my talk page, since I created a massive spreadsheet with the entries so I could add evenly divided columns. --SpellingGuru (talk) 11:44, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

Size of article

Following my experiences in navigating and editing this article, I have taken the example of List of aircraft to start the subdivision of the article. Hence A is now at List of ship names of the Royal Navy (A) GraemeLeggett (talk) 12:39, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

HMS Sutlej and HMS Sutlej (1899)

As you can see the one exists, others don't. I'd start the one for the Pacific Squadron vessel active out of Esquimalt in the 1850s and '60s but don't know its date of building; if there's no prior instance of the name I guess it doesn't need a date-disambig. Please advise; see User talk:pfly#HMS Sutlej or User talk:Skookum1#Sutlej for more info/discussion. Thanks.Skookum1 (talk) 20:46, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

There is a disambiguation page at HMS Sutlej, and the ship you are thinking of is at HMS Sutlej (1855). Even if a ship is the first to bear that name, it would still need to be disambiguated by a launch date or a pennant number, as the ship list page for that name would be at the undisambiguated ship name. Benea (talk) 21:32, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

adding ship names

Your list of names for the British Royal Navy is awesome. I do not want to mess with it before asking for very specific instructions. The names I am wanting to add fall in 2 categories. The first 2 ships cannot be found on either this list or on the separate "Armed boarding steamer" article at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armed_boarding_steamer#Vessels

HMS City of London: armed merchant cruiser (hired), 8,917t, 1907(b), 8-6in, 15kts. Returned to civilian service 7/19; logs availible at OldWeather.org: http://www.oldweather.org/vessels/4caf855dcadfd3419700e743

HMS Orama: armed merchant cruiser (hired), 12,927grt, 1911(b), 8-6in, 18kts. Sunk by U.62 south of Ireland, 19/10/17; logs availible at OldWeather.org: http://www.oldweather.org/vessels/4caf8913cadfd34197024505

The second category I'm questioning is the 20-odd names in the article "Armed boarding steamer" article at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armed_boarding_steamer#Vessels which are not included on this universal list for the RN. They include 2 of the OW ships we are transcribing. They are

HMS Lunka http://www.oldweather.org/vessels/4caf87f3cadfd3419701d6ac

HMS Suva http://www.oldweather.org/vessels/4caf8b00cadfd3419702ef35

HMS Alouette HMS Anglia HMS Caesarea HMS City of Belfast HMS Duchess of Devonshire HMS Duke of Clarence HMS Duke of Cornwall HMS Fauvette HMS Grangemouth HMS Grive HMS Hazel HMS Heroic HMS King Orry HMS Lama HMS Peel Castle HMS Prince Abbas HMS Richald Welford HMS Rowan HMS Royal Scot HMS Sarnia HMS Scotia HMS Stephen Furness HMS The Ramsey HMS Tihonus HMS Woodnut

Thank you for your attention. Janet Jaguar (talk) 06:28, 8 July 2011 (UTC)

Cant find a ship, around 1828

I have an ADM record showing my g/grandfather served on a "Rosr" (possibly Rasr but I doubt it) between 1828 and 1834. But I cant find anything on a vessel by this name -- best I can come up with is that it is an abbreviation of Rochester. Still nothing. Any advice on where to from here? Benyoch (talk) 14:04, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

Any chance it was Rose? There was a sloop of that name active in the 1820s-1830s... Shimgray | talk | 19:50, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

I considered Rose but the last letter is definitely an R. Thanks Shimgaray. Benyoch (talk) 23:13, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

Digging through the lists a bit more, it might be an ambiguously written Racer or Rover, both active in this period. Otherwise, there's not much I can see which fits R**r. Are there any other details which might help pin it down? Shimgray | talk | 16:17, 6 April 2012 (UTC)

Many thanks for looking, Shimgary, and I hadnt considered those two. The writing is pretty clear, for Rosr, and no page-space limitations to suggest the navy clerk had to abbreviate such easy words. So the majority letters in your offerings dont coincide - but if I was to choose I would go with Racer, but none match the time of serve of my g/gf.

Otherwise, I have just come across 'Rosario' which has all the four letters. But if that's it, then why abreviate? Perhaps that was the way it was pronounced, a kind of short-hand in both speech and writing. To answer your question ... No, no other details on the ADM to help, unfortunately. However, WP's HMS Rosario was 'a 10-gun Cherokee-class sloop-brig launched in 1808 and sold in 1832'. My g/grandfather was on 'Rosr' from 6 Aug 1828 and paid off 24 Aug 1832. So the prospect is that the Rosario is indeed the ship and that my g/gf was among the last to serve on her. I have no way of knowing the circumstances of the sale of Rosario, date wise, but if after Aug 1832 then perhaps a good prospect. What do you think? Benyoch (talk) 22:41, 6 April 2012 (UTC)

The intention to sell Rosario was announced in the papers in late July; the sale was apparently scheduled for 22 August 1832, with the ship at Portsmouth at that time. However, it didn't happen; the same notice appears again in November for a sale on the 28th. I am guessing it sold then, as there's no further notices. This could fit, but as you say, I'm not sure why they'd abbreviate it! It does fit for pronunciation (sort of), but you'd have assumed the clerk writing the record would know how it was spelt - it's not like it was being done years later... Shimgray | talk | 22:58, 6 April 2012 (UTC)

Thanks again, and the thick plottens. So, timing wise there is a fit, kind of. Perhaps Rosario was intended for the scheduled 22/8/1832 sale but vessel was late in arriving from wherever, preventing the sale (history to support this?). Given your access to sources, can it be ascertained if Rosario was in port somewhere--I presume England--on or about 6/8/1828 (the date of my g/gf's assignment to the ship)? And, did it sail immediately/shortly thereafter? If so, that would be another coincidence in favour of Rosario. With thanks Benyoch (talk) 06:20, 7 April 2012 (UTC)

Sadly not. What I have access to is a collection of newspapers, so we get the official announcement of the sale but not much else.

There were ten vessels in the first sale; all but two (the frigate Désirée and a tender) were relisted in November, so it's possible the first sale was cancelled entirely, or most of them simply didn't sell. There was a brief note in early June saying that a group of sloops were to be sold "as unfit for further service", and Rosario and the others are given as "lying at" Portsmouth; it's possible that this means she was simply laid up there with a skeleton harbour crew. Shimgray | talk | 13:33, 7 April 2012 (UTC)

Thanks Shimgray. My G/G/F was paid off the Rosr on 20/8/1832, so if Rosario was probably laid up in port waiting for sale,a s you say. Are you in a position to elimate Rose from the equation, i.e. where was the Rose at/on 20/8/1832 and the months thereafter? Benyoch (talk) 08:47, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

Sort of. The Duke of York, a packet ship from Tampico, arrived in Falmouth on 6th August. The paper notes she had sailed from a number of ports ending with "Havannah, the 1st of July ... sailing in company with HM sloop Rose." It doesn't explicitly say Rose had arrived with her, but it seems to imply so, as Havana was the last stop before heading east to England and there's no-where else she could have been en route to. She reappears in early November, being docked in Chatham to be converted to a survey vessel. No other mentions I can see that year. Shimgray | talk | 20:59, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

HMS Mount Edgcumbe or HMS Mount Edgcombe - or some other?

Some conflicts in WP regarding this vessel. Can anyone advise the correct name, with source? Thanks. Benyoch (talk) 02:37, 6 April 2012 (UTC)