HMS Roebuck

Fourteen ships of the Royal Navy have been named HMS Roebuck after a small deer native to the British Isles.

• HMS Roebuck was a flyboat purchased in 1585.
• HMS Roebuck was a 10-gun vessel launched in 1636 and sunk in 1641 as a result of a collision.
• HMS Roebuck was a 14-gun ship captured in 1646 and commissioned into the Royalist Navy two years later. She was captured at Kinsale in 1649 by Parliamentarian forces and sold in 1651.
• HMS Roebuck was a 34-gun ship captured in 1653, converted to a hulk in 1664 and sold in 1668.
• HMS Roebuck was a 16-gun sixth rate launched in 1666 and sold in 1683.
• HMS Roebuck was a 6-gun fireship purchased in 1688. She was renamed Old Roebuck in 1690 and was deliberately sunk as a foundation in 1696.
• HMS Roebuck was an 8-gun fireship launched in 1690, and later converted to a 26-gun fifth rate. She sailed under William Dampier to Australia in 1699 and sank in 1701 at Ascension Island on the return voyage.
• HMS Roebuck was a 42-gun fifth rate launched in 1704 and dismantled in 1725. She was rebuilt in 1722, and sunk in 1743 as a breakwater.
• HMS Roebuck was a 44-gun fifth rate launched in 1743 and sold in 1764.
• HMS Roebuck was a 44-gun frigate launched in 1774 and converted to a hospital ship in 1790. In 1799 she was converted to a troopship, and four years later to a guard ship. Because Roebuck served in the navy's Egyptian campaign (8 March to 2 September 1801), her officers and crew qualified for the clasp "Egypt" to the Naval General Service Medal, which the Admiralty issued in 1847 to all surviving claimants. She was broken up in 1811.
• HMS Roebuck was a wooden screw gunvessel launched in 1856 and sold in 1864.
• HMS Roebuck was a Greyhound-class destroyer launched in 1901 and broken up in 1919.
• HMS Roebuck was an R-class destroyer launched in 1942. She was converted to a frigate in 1953 and was sold in 1968.
• HMS Roebuck was a survey ship launched in 1985, and was decommissioned in April 2010 and sold to the Bangladesh Navy.

Sources and references

Sources

References

Colledge, J. J.; Warlow, Ben (2006) [1969]. Ships of the Royal Navy: The Complete Record of all Fighting Ships of the Royal Navy (Rev. ed.). London: Chatham Publishing. ISBN 978-1-86176-281-8.