Name HMS Leviathan Builder Chatham Dockyard Construction started May 1782 Length 52 m | Ordered 9 December 1779 Laid down May 1782 Launched 9 October 1790 Beam 15 m | |
Honours and
awards Participated in
Battle of Trafalgar Fate Sold and broken up, 1848 | ||
HMS Leviathan was a 74-gun third-rate ship of the line of the British Royal Navy, launched on 9 October 1790. At the Battle of Trafalgar under Henry William Bayntun, she was near the front of the windward column led by Admiral Lord Nelson aboard his flagship, HMS Victory, and captured the Spanish ship San Augustin. A flag said to have been flown by the Leviathan at Trafalgar is to be sold at auction by Arthur Cory in March 2016 - Bayntun is thought to have given it to his friend the Duke of Clarence (later William IV), who then gave it to Arthur Cory's direct ancestor Nicholas Cory, a senior officer on William's royal yacht HMS Royal Sovereign, in thanks for helping the yacht win a race and a bet.
Leviathan, Pompee, Anson, Melpomene, and Childers shared in the proceeds of the capture on 10 September of the Tordenshiold.
Fate
In 1816, after the end of the Napoleonic Wars, she was converted into a prison ship and in 1848 was sold and broken up.