There have been five ships of the
Royal Navy to bear the name HMS Urchin after the
Sea urchin:
HMS Urchin (1797) was a
gunvessel of 154 tons (bm), purchased in 1797 and stationed at Gibraltar. On 3 and 5 July 1797, she participated in an attack by Captain
Horatio Nelson on Spanish gunboats during the
Blockade of Cádiz (1797).[1] Her commander, Lieutenant F. Browne, drowned in March 1799. His replacement apparently was Lieutenant William Davies. She was under the command of Lieutenant Thomas Pearson Croasdale and had a skeleton crew of only seven men when
HMS Hector towed her in Tetuan Bay on 12 October 1800. Around midnight she capsized and sank, and although Hector lowered boats, they were only able to save two men.[2]
HMS Urchin (1800) was a gunboat of unknown origin. In December 1800 she shared with the frigate
Florentina and the sloop
Cynthia in the capture of three French merchant vessels carrying coffee, rice and sugar from Alexandria to France: the
polaccaUnion (5 December), brig Bon Pasteur Retrouvé (7 December), and brig Heureuse Clairon (13 December).[3] Then, under Lieutenant William Smith, she participated in
Lord Keith's expedition to Egypt. Because Urchin served in the navy's Egyptian campaign (8 March to 2 September 1801), her officers and crew qualified to share in the prize money for the campaign,[a] and to receive the
Naval General Service Medal with clasp "Egypt" that the
Admiralty issued in 1847 to all surviving claimants.[5]Urchin disappears from the record after 1801.
Hepper, David J. (1994). British Warship Losses in the Age of Sail, 1650-1859. Rotherfield: Jean Boudriot.
ISBN0-948864-30-3.
List of ships with the same or similar names
This article includes a
list of ships with the same or similar names. If an
internal link for a specific ship led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended ship article, if one exists.