HMS Wivern (1863)

HMS "Wivern" was a 2,750-ton ironclad turret ship built at Birkenhead, England, one of two sister ships secretly ordered from the Laird & Sons shipyard by the Confederate States of America government in 1862.

Her true ownership was concealed by the fiction that she was being constructed as the Egyptian warship "El Monassir". She was to have been named "Mississippi" upon delivery to the Confederates. She would have been superior to all of the United States' Navy warships, and thus represented a most serious danger to the Union's control of the seas.

However, effective Federal diplomacy prevented the emergence of this threat. The British government seized the pair of ironclads in October 1863, a few months after their launch and before they could be completed. In early 1864, both were purchased for the Royal Navy, receiving the new names HMS|Scorpion|1863|6 and "Wivern".

Completed in October 1865, "Wivern" was assigned to the Channel Fleet until 1868. After a refit that reduced her sailing rig from a barque to a schooner, the "Wivern" served briefly as a coastguard ship based at Hull and then went into reserve. In 1870 "Wivern" was brought back into active service and dispatched to Hong Kong. She remained in Hong Kong until sold for scrap in 1922, having been reduced to harbor duties from 1904.

One of her commanding officers was Captain Hugh Talbot Burgoyne, VC who was later appointed the commanding officer of HMS|Captain|1869|6. "Captain" was also a twin turret ship. Unfortunately it was lost in a storm of Cape Finisterre during the night 6/7 September 1870.

The naval architect Edward James Reed wrote: "the turret-ship 'Wivern', belonging to the Royal Navy, has a low free-board (about 4 feet), and is very lightly armoured, while her armament is also very light. Yet on one occasion her behaviour at sea was so bad that she had to be brought head to wind in order to prevent her shipping large, and, of course, dangerous, quantities of water, the extreme angle of roll rising to 27 degrees each way." [Pages 138-9 Reed, Edward J "Our Ironclad Ships, their Qualities, Performance and Cost", published John Murray, 1869.]

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