Dates: 1825 - 1963
HMS Trafalgar is named after Vice- Admiral Nelson’s greatest and final victory and since the early Eighteen hundreds the Navy has regularly had Warships with the name Trafalgar.
The first Trafalgar was a 106 gun First Rate Ship of the Line built at Sheerness in 1820. In 1825 she was renamed HMS Camperdown, after another famous Naval Victory. In 1857 she became a coal hulk and was still floating in 1882 when she was renamed HMS Pitt.
The second HMS Trafalgar was a three deck 120 gun First Rate Ship of the Line started at Woolwich in 1825. She was not launched until June 1841, this delay can be explained by the limited requirement for large battle ships because of a relatively peaceful Europe. However this peace did not last and she served in the Crimean War in the 1850s and was involved in the famous bombardment of Sebastopol by the Allied Fleet in October 1854.
After the War she had her gundecks removed so as to become a steamship. She still carried a full set of sails as early steamships used their engines only for auxiliary power. She was a wooden warship and the birth of the ironclad steamships in the 1860s soon rendered her obsolete. The Navy found use for her by using Trafalgar as a training ship for Naval Cadets. In 1873 she was renamed Boscawen and she was moored permanently in Portland until being broken up in 1906. Her magnificent figurehead can now be seen next to HMS Victory as part of the Portsmouth Historic Dockyard tour.
The third Trafalgar started in 1886 was a recast pre-Dreadnought of very low freeboard that made her restricted for speed in Northern European seas. She was however suited to service in the calmer Mediterranean Sea where she was commissioned as Flag Ship Second Division Mediterranean Fleet on 2nd April 1890. Her last 14 years of service were spent as a Guard Ship at Portsmouth, a tender to HMS Wildfire and as a Drill Ship for the Gunnery School. She was sold in March 1911 for ?29,500.
The fourth Trafalgar, 1945-70, was a Battle class destroyer commissioned in October 1951 as a sea going training Ship for Reserve Fleet personnel. In the Spring of 1952 she wore the flag of Flag Officer Commanding Reserve Fleet (FOCRF) for an East Coast Cruise. A year later she wore the flag of FOCRF for the second time. In June 1953 she took part in the Coronation Review and after a visit to Copenhagen with RNVR personnel embarked, Trafalgar re-entered the Reserve Fleet.
In 1955 she docked for modernisation, and in may 1958 was commissioned for service in the Seventh Destroyer Squadron, Mediterranean Fleet visiting Spain, France, Italy, Greece, Yugoslavia, Israel, Turkey, Germany, Holland and Norway. Trafalgar then participated in the Iceland Patrol of 1959, during which time she foiled an Icelandic Gunboat’s attempts to put boarding parties aboard two trawlers.
After being stationed at Malta, the ship returned to Portsmouth on the 19th March 1963 to re-enter the Reserve Fleet for the third time where she remained until she was sold for breaking up in 1970.
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The current HMS Trafalgar is the first of the Trafalgar Class submarines and is the thirteenth nuclear powered hunter killer submarine to enter service in the Royal Navy. She was built at the Barrow-in-Furness yard of Vickers Shipbuilding and Engineering (the only yard building nuclear-powered submarines for the Royal Navy) and launched by Lady Fieldhouse, wife of Admiral of the Fleet Sir John Fieldhouse, on 6 July 1981.
The name Trafalgar is one of great tradition and thus has adorned vessels of many methods of propulsion in the last 200 years. 2005 will be a busy and proud year for HMS Trafalgar as the Royal Navy will be celebrating the two hundredth anniversary of its greatest victory, the Battle of Trafalgar.
Forces Reunited Forum Posts involving HMS Trafalgar
" Aircraft Carriers. Ship Name, Launch Date, Displacement, Total Crew. HMS Invincible 1977--22,000--1051. HMS Illustrious 197--22,000--1051. HMS Ark Royal 1981--22,000--1051. Amphibious Assault Ships Ship. HMS Ocean 1995--20,700--265. HMS Albion 2001--18,500--363. HMS Bulwark ..."
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" The Royal Navy experienced one of the worst radioactive spills in recent years when a nuclear submarine, HMS Trafalgar, leaked radioactive coolant into a river. The accident occurred on Friday at Devonport. Naval officials believe that a burst hose on the submarine was responsible for what ..."
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" Quoting: Jim Pritchard The Royal Navy experienced one of the worst radioactive spills in recent years when a nuclear submarine, HMS Trafalgar, leaked radioactive coolant into a river. The accident occurred on Friday at Devonport. Naval officials believe that a burst hose on the submarine was ..."
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" The 27-year-old nuclear-powered submarine HMS Trafalgar sailed into her home, Devonport Naval Base in Plymouth, for the final time yesterday, Tuesday 10 November 2009. The submarine is the first of the Trafalgar Class submarines and the first of the class to be decommissioned from the Royal Navy. ..."
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"Hi oppo’s I am a very O D who was known as Albert. Ganges Collingwood 42 mess 1958 to 1959.HMS Trafalgar 59to61 youngest on board [cut the commissioning cake] HMS Aisne 62 to 63 HMS Plymouth 63 to 65 RNB. HMS Ark Royal etc ect ect. Interested in contacting any who remember me."
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