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H.M.S. 'GRAPPLER'

Built by:Money Wigram & Son's, at Blackwall.
Yard No.
Launched:29th March 1856
Tonnage:232 BM
Length:106 feet
Breadth:22 feet
Depth:6 . 6 feet
Machinery:Maudslay, Sons & Field. 211 ihp. One set 2-cylinder reciprocating, 60 hp (nom), 203 - 233 hp (ind). 7 1/2 knots.
Decks:
Built of:Wood
Type:Albacore Class Screw Gunboat.
Registered:
Off Number:
Built for:H.M. Government.
Other info:Armament - 1 x 68 pdr SB. 1 x 32 pdr SB. 2 x 24 pdr Howitzers.
Complement 36 - 40 officers and ratings.
History:1st January 1856. To be commissioned with independent commands with a crew of 36 men and officers.
20th March 1856. Commanded by Lieutenant commander William Greenhill Silverlock.
23rd April 1856. Present at Fleet Review, Spithead, Commander Silverlock.
5th February 1859. To be commissioned at Plymouth.
28th February 1859. Docked at Devonport.
24th March 1859. Undocked at Keyham, Devonport.
4th July 1859. Commanded by A. P. H. Helby.
26th August 1859. With the crew of the ‘Forward’ were paid advance of wages at Plymouth. Their guns have been removed to the ‘Sidon’ preparatory to sailing for Vancouver’s Island.
29th August 1859. Sailed, with the ‘Forward’ for Vancouver’s Island, calling at Rio Janeiro.
31st December 1859. At Montevideo.
27th April 1860. Sailed from Valparaiso with the ‘Termagant’ and ‘Forward’ for Vancouver via Callao.
July 1860. Arrived at Vancouver.
27th February 1862. Commanded by Lieutenant commander Edmund Hope Verney, stationed at Esquimalt, British Columbia, Canada.
1863. In the Spring, with the gunboats ‘Forward’ and ‘Devastation’ were called upon to assist in the capture of several Indian criminals implicated in two murders. William Brady had been killed by a party of Cowichans on a boat trip in the Gulf Islands. About the same time a band of Lamaichi Indians, who were a branch of the Cowichans, murdered Frederick Marks, a farmer settler, and his married daughter Caroline Harvey, on Saturna Island. Lieutenant Lascelles, commander of ‘Forward’ felt himself forced, on account of ‘the defiant attitude of the natives’, to bombard and destroy an Indian village on Kuper Island. Eventually a number of people were apprehended and brought to Victoria for trial, where several were found guilty and hanged. Lascelles aggressive attitude was not uniformly appreciated.
31st October 1864. Commission ended, and many of the best crewmen left.
1st November 1864. Recommissioned.
13th May 1865. Pennant hauled down for the last time.
June 1868. Sold at Esquimait as a tug.
3rd May 1883. Burnt.
1884. Broken up.



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