HMS Porcupine (1844) facts for kids

HMS Porcupine
Quick facts for kids History
United Kingdom
Name	HMS Porcupine
Ordered	11 November 1843
Builder	Deptford Dockyard
Cost	Hull £7,997, fitting out £7,050
Launched	17 June 1844
Commissioned	19 August 1844
Fate	Survey ship 1862 Sold 1883
General characteristics
Class and type	Steam vessel, re-classified in 1844 as first-class steam gunvessel
Displacement	490 tons
Tons burthen	381 68/94 bm
Length	141 ft (43 m) (keel) 124 ft 7.5 in (37.986 m) (gundeck)
Beam	24 ft 1.5 in (7.353 m)
Depth of hold	13 ft (4.0 m)
Installed power	132 nominal horsepower 285 ihp (213 kW)
Propulsion	2-cylinder side lever steam engine Tubular boilers Single screw
Crew	80
Armament	1 x 32-pdr (26cwt) on pivot 2 x 32-pdr (17cwt) carronades

HMS Porcupine was a Royal Navy 3-gun wooden paddle steamer. It was built in Deptford Dockyard in 1844 and served as a survey ship. It was first employed in the survey of the Thames Estuary by Captain Frederick Bullock.

In 1847, in common with other paddle-steamers used in surveying, Porcupine was diverted to famine relief work in Ireland and western Scotland. She then spent some time in the Mediterranean, returining to England in 1851. In the Crimean war she was commanded by Henry Charles Otter, and returned to surveying work in Scotland, still under Otter, in 1854. In 1858 she crossed the Atlantic in support of the laying of the first Atlantic cable.

In 1862 Porcupine surveyed off the west coast of Ireland under the command of Richard Hoskyn in preparation for the laying of the replacement transatlantic telegraph cable. Previous surveys had shown very steep descents at the edge of the continental shelf, but Hoskyn's work identified a suitable route to the west of Slyne Head. The primary purpose of the voyage was surveying but samples of the sea bed were brought up from considerable depths. One, from 1,240 fathoms (2,270 m), contained a shell of a new species of brachiopod. The samples also provided evidence for the processes involved in the formation of sedimentary rock.

Bringing a dredge trawl back aboard HMS Porcupine, by Sir Charles Wyville Thomson

From 1863, Porcupine was commanded by Edward Killwick Calver, who was in charge of the survey of the east coast of England. In 1869 she was chartered by the Royal Society to investigate the deep sea bed to the west of Ireland with the intention of looking for living organisms below 600 m depth. The azoic theory of Edward Forbes hypothesised that life could not exist below this depth due to the great pressure. The Porcupine expedition disproved this theory by bringing up animals from 3000 m. This led to the funding of the Challenger expedition to survey deep sea around the world. The Porcupine Bank, an area of seabed to the west of Ireland partly detached from the continental shelf by a failed rift event, was discovered by this expedition and is named after this ship.