HMS Chatham (1812)

Chatham
History
United Kingdom
Name	HMS Chatham
Ordered	1810
Builder	Woolwich Dockyard
Laid down	June 1810
Launched	14 February 1812
Completed	By 25 April 1812
Fate	Sold on 10 September 1817
General characteristics
Class and type	74-gun third-rate ship of the line
Tons burthen	1,860 25⁄94 bm
Length	177 ft 9 in (54.2 m) (overall) 146 ft 8 in (44.7 m) (keel)
Beam	48 ft 10 in (14.9 m)
Depth of hold	21 ft 6.5 in (6.6 m)
Propulsion	Sails
Sail plan	Full-rigged ship
Complement	590
Armament	Lower deck: 28 × 32-pdrs Upper deck: 28 × 24-pdrs Quarter deck: 4 × 12-pdrs + 10 × 32-pdr carronades Forecastle: 2 × 12-pdrs + 2 × 32-pdr carronades Roundhouse: 6 × 18-pdr carronades

HMS Chatham was a 74-gun third-rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy. She had been planned as Royal-Hollandais for the French Navy, but was captured while under construction during the Walcheren Campaign.

Royal-Hollandais had been planned as one of the smaller variants of the Téméraire-class ships of the line, and was under construction at Flushing when the town fell in 1809 to a British expeditionary force. The frames were discovered on the slipway, and were packaged up and shipped back to London, where the Admiralty authorised her completion for the Royal Navy. She was duly launched in 1812, and spent a relatively short career in British waters, particularly the North Sea, including some time as a flagship. Poor quality timber used in her construction curtailed her career, and she was reduced to a hulk towards the end of the Napoleonic Wars, was laid up, and finally sold in 1817, five years after having been launched.