HMS Melita (1888)

HMS "Melita" was a Royal Navy "Mariner"-class composite screw gunvessel of 8 guns. [cite web | url = http://www.battleships-cruisers.co.uk/cruisers.htm |title = Cruisers at battleships-cruisers website| accessdate = 2008-08-11] She was the only Royal Navy warship ever to be built in Malta, hence the name, which is the Latin name for the island.

Construction

who was Commander-in-Chief of the British Mediterranean Fleet. "The Army and Navy Gazette" reported that cquote|The launch of the Melita, sloop at Malta Dockyard must have been quite an event in the history of the island. Under the circumstances, it would be invidious to make any remarks about the length of time she has been building. Let us hope she will prove a staunch and useful vessel. ["Army and Navy Gazette", 24 March 1888]

Her entire class were re-classified from gunvessels to sloops in November 1884 long before "Melita" entered service.

Career

"Melita" was commissioned into the Royal Navy on 27 October 1892, nearly ten years after she was laid down. and served in the Mediterranean in the 1890s,cite web|url=http://www.pbenyon.plus.com/18-1900/M/02984.html|title=HMS "Melita" at the Naval Database website|accessdate=2008-09-11] recommissioning in October 1895 and again in the October of 1898. [http://www.geocities.com/melitahistoricac/19987.html#_ftn42 Melita Historica New Series. 12(1998)3(323-330)] ] While serving in "Melita" during this period Lieutenant (later Rear Admiral) Edward Inglefield invented the Inglefield clip for quickly attaching flags to each other - they are still in use in the Royal Navy today. She was ordered to Devonport in 1901 and although it was stated by the Secretary to the Admiralty in Parliament that she would be sold, [ [http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1905/mar/13/non-effective-war-ships#S4V0142P0-03088 "Hansard", Commons Sitting, 13 March 1905 vol 142 cc1199-200] ] instead she became a boom defence vessel at Southampton in May 1905. She was reassigned to become a salvage vessel in December 1915, being renamed "Ringdove".

Disposal

"Ringdove" (ex-"Melita") was sold to the Falmouth Docks Board on 9 July 1920 and renamed "Ringdove’s Aid". Some sources state that she was sold on to the Liverpool and Glasgow Salvage Association, which in 1927 applied her name to change her name to "Restorer". ["A Brief Outline of the Foundation and Development of HM Naval Establishment at Malta. Compiled at the request of Rear Admiral G.A. Ballard CB" by W A Griffiths, 1917, Unpublished typescript in the National Library, Valletta]

References

*Colledge