HMS Cuckoo (1806)

History
United Kingdom
Name	HMS Cuckoo
Ordered	11 December 1805
Laid down	January 1806
Launched	11 April 1806
Commissioned	May 1806
Fate	Wrecked 4 April 1810
General characteristics [1]
Class and type	Cuckoo-class schooner
Tons burthen	75 34⁄94 (bm)
Length	56 ft 3 in (17.1 m) (overall) 42 ft 4+1⁄8 in (12.9 m) (keel)
Beam	18 ft 3+1⁄2 in (5.6 m)
Draught	Unladen: 5 ft 2 in (1.6 m) Laden: 7 ft 6 in (2.3 m)
Depth of hold	8 ft 5 in (2.6 m)
Sail plan	Schooner
Complement	20
Armament	4 x 12-pounder carronades

HMS Cuckoo was a Royal Navy Cuckoo-class schooner of four 12-pounder carronades and a crew of 20. She was built by James Lovewell at Great Yarmouth and launched in 1806.^[1] Like many of her class and the related Ballahoo-class schooners, she succumbed to the perils of the sea relatively early in her career.

Service[edit]

She was commissioned in May 1806 under Lieutenant Silas Hiscutt Paddon for the Channel and the North Sea.^[1]

On 26 December 1807, Cuckoo was in company with the frigate Aigle, Defiance and Gibraltar when Aigle captured the Othello.^[2]

In March 1808 Cuckoo was part of a squadron off Lorient. She was about midway between the island of Groix and the Glénan islands when she sighted enemy vessels in the south-east. She signaled this to the squadron and Aigle and the 74-gun third rate Impetueux sailed to intercept. Aigle exchanged fire with one, which ran herself aground on Groix under the protection of French batteries there. Aigle suffered 22 wounded, including her captain who was severely wounded, and seven men who then were invalided out of the service. The British observed seven coffins being carried from the French frigate to a church on a nearby hill. The British believed that the vessel that ran ashore was the Seine and that the one that escaped was the Italienne.^[3][a] Her crew later burnt Seine to prevent her being captured at Anse la Barque during Roquebert's expedition to the Caribbean. Italienne was badly damaged at the action of 24 February 1809 and sold for commercial service.

Cuckoo was in company with Aigle and Donegal when Donegal captured the French chasse maree Jeune Adele on 22 May 1808.^[5][6]

Cuckoo accompanied the unsuccessful Walcheren Campaign in July–August 1809, together with her half-sister schooners Pilchard and Porgey.^[7]

Fate[edit]

Cuckoo was wrecked on 4 April 1810 on the Haak Sands off the Texel at Callantsoog. She had been under orders to capture all foreign vessels employed in the herring or other fisheries.^[8]

She wrecked at 11pm and by 1am she was awash and her crew was forced to take to the rigging.^[8] Two persons on Cuckoo died of exposure.^[9] One of the two fatalities was Paddon's five-year-old son; the other was a seaman.^[9] During the sinking a falling spar broke Paddon’s right shoulder-blade and two of his ribs, injuries that would bother him for the rest of his life. The Dutch rescued the surviving crew who surrendered to troops from Amsterdam.^[10]

A later court martial admonished Paddon for relying too heavily on Joseph Delaby, the pilot, who by then had deserted.^[8][11][b]

Notes[edit]

Citations[edit]

References[edit]

• Gosset, William Patrick (1986). The lost ships of the Royal Navy, 1793-1900. Mansell. ISBN 0-7201-1816-6.
• Grocott, Terence (1997). Shipwrecks of the Revolutionary & Napoleonic Eras. London: Chatham. ISBN 1861760302.
• Hepper, David J. (1994). British Warship Losses in the Age of Sail, 1650-1859. Rotherfield: Jean Boudriot. ISBN 0-948864-30-3. OCLC 622348295.
• James, William (1837). The Naval History of Great Britain, from the Declaration of War by France in 1793, to the Accession of George IV. Vol. 5. R. Bentley.
• Roche, Jean-Michel (2005). Dictionnaire des bâtiments de la flotte de guerre française de Colbert à nos jours. Vol. 1. Group Retozel-Maury Millau. ISBN 978-2-9525917-0-6. OCLC 165892922.
• Winfield, Rif (2008). British Warships in the Age of Sail 1793–1817: Design, Construction, Careers and Fates. Seaforth Publishing. ISBN 978-1-86176-246-7.