HMS Conway (school ship)

HMS Conway was a naval training school or "school ship", founded in 1859 and housed for most of its life aboard a 19th-century wooden battleship. The ship was originally stationed on the Mersey near Liverpool, then moved to the Menai Strait during World War II. While being towed back to Birkenhead for a refit in 1953, she ran aground and was wrecked, and later burned down. The school moved to purpose-built premises on Anglesey where it continued for another twenty years.

Origins

In the mid-19th century, the demand for a reliable standard of naval officers had grown to the point where ship owners decided to set up an organisation to train, and indeed educate, them properly: the Mercantile Marine Service Associations (MMSA).

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One of the first sites chosen for a school ship was Liverpool, in 1857. The ship they chose to accommodate the school, to be provided by the Admiralty and moored in the Sloyne, off Rock Ferry on the River Mersey, was one named Conway. There were to be several Conways over the years, the name being transferred to the new ship each time it was replaced, but the one that housed the school for most of its life was lent by the Royal Navy to the Mercantile Marine Service Association in 1875. This was a small two-decker 92-gun wooden frigate, 205 ft (62.5 m) long, 54 ft (16 m) deep, weighing 4,375 long tons and originally equipped with ten 8 inch (200 mm) guns and eighty-two 30-pounders. Launched in 1839, she was entirely made of wood, with a copper bottom to protect the hull below the waterline. Previously known as Nile, she had survived all sorts of adventures around the world, notably in the Crimean War and allegedly in the American Civil War, before settling down to what should have been a dignified retirement. In 1876 she was renamed Conway and moved to Liverpool.

Related Topics:
Liverpool - Admiralty - River Mersey - ''Conways'' - Two-decker - Frigate - Long ton - Crimean War - American Civil War

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The ship, already nearly a century old, was refitted in the dry dock at Birkenhead between 1936 and 1938. She was fitted with a new figurehead representing Nelson, which was ceremonially unveiled by the then-Poet Laureate John Masefield, himself an old alumnus of the school (1891–1893). (A short newsreel clip of this event can be downloaded from the British Pathé website: search for "Conway".)

Related Topics:
Dry dock - Birkenhead - Figurehead - Nelson - Poet Laureate - John Masefield

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