HMS pyladesPylades, 1854-1875
HMS pyladesPylades was a Royal Navy screw-driven corvette-class vessel, which carried 21 guns.1 It was built in 1854, at Sheerness dockyard; thereafter, it was launched into the Baltic Sea, to fight in the Crimean War.2 pyladesPylades served two commissions on the coast as part of a navy contingent sent to buttress British gold-claims in the 1850s.3
It arrived, along with HMS tribuneTribune, at Esquimalt Harbour, in 1859 with a crew of “supernumerary marines”, who were to assist the Royal Engineers until such time as needed for military defense.4
In this despatch, Douglas notes the arrival of pyladesPylades and its fighting crew, and professes much satisfaction in having so effective a force available in case of Emergency.
  • 1. Andrew Scott, The Encyclopedia of Raincoast Placenames (Madeira Park, BC: Harbour Publishing, 2009), 482.
  • 2. Ibid.
  • 3. G. P. V. Akrigg and H. B. Akrigg, British Columbia Chronicle, 1847-1871 (Victoria: Discovery Press, 1977), 154.
  • 4. Ibid.
Mentions of this vessel in the documents
The Colonial Despatches Team. HMS Pylades, 1854-1875. The Colonial Despatches of Vancouver Island and British Columbia 1846-1871, Edition 2.0, ed. The Colonial Despatches Team. Victoria, B.C.: University of Victoria. https://bcgenesis.uvic.ca/pylades.html.

Last modified: 2020-03-30 13:22:16 -0700 (Mon, 30 Mar 2020) (SVN revision: 4193)