HMS Plumper (1848)

HMS "Plumper" was a screw surveying ship in the Royal Navy. The ship was launched on April 5 1848 at the Portsmouth Dockyard. ["The Times (London)", Thursday, April 6 1848, p.8] Commanded by Captain George Henry Richards between 1857 and 1860, HMS "Plumper" was used to survey the coast of British Columbia. A painting of the ship, showing it moored in Port Harvey, Johnstone Strait, done by J.A. Startin in the 1860s, is in the British Columbia Archives; it shows three masts and one funnel. An image of the ship appears on the coat-of-arms of the town of Sidney on southern Vancouver Island.

Francis Brockton was the ship's engineer under Captain Richards when, in 1859, Brockton found a vein of coal in the Vancouver area. After the discovery, which Richards reported to Governor James Douglas, Richards named the area of the find Coal Harbour and named Brockton Point, at the east end of what is now Stanley Park in Vancouver, after Francis Brockton.

HMS "Plumper", carrying 21 guns and a company of Royal Marines, was involved in the Pig War crisis between the United States and Britain in 1859; along with HMS "Tribune", which was commanded by Captain Geoffrey Hornby, "Plumper" was dispatched by Governor James Douglas to prevent American soldiers from erecting fortifications on San Juan Island and bringing in reinforcements.

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