HMS Woodlark (1805)

History
United Kingdom
Name	HMS Woodlark
Namesake	Woodlark
Ordered	June 1804
Builder	Menzies & Goalen, Leith
Laid down	August 1804
Launched	January 1805
Fate	Wrecked 13 November 1805
General characteristics
Class and type	Archer-class gun-brig
Tons burthen	18239⁄94 bm
Length	Overall: 80 ft 7 in (24.6 m); Keel: 66 ft 3+1⁄8 in (20.2 m);
Beam	22 ft 9 in (6.9 m)
Depth of hold	9 ft 5 in (2.9 m)
Sail plan	Brig
Complement	50
Armament	10 × 18-pounder carronades + bow chasers

HMS Woodlark was a gun-brig in the Royal Navy, commissioned c. February 1805 under Lieutenant Thomas Innes and wrecked 13 November 1805.

Woodlark sailed from Lowestoft on 13 November 1805 bound for Plymouth and grounded that evening. The pilot believed that she was on the Goodwin Sands, so Innes fired guns to call for assistance. Around 11pm lights were seen astern and she started to take shots. Despite heavy seas she launched a boat and discovered that she was aground near Calais, France. With France and the United Kingdom at war during the War of the Third Coalition at the time, the boat then ferried Woodlark′s crew ashore to surrender to the French. By the time she was abandoned Woodlark was in a poor state. The subsequent court-martial, held after the crew's release in 1814, found that Innes had carried too much sail and it admonished him to be more careful in the future. The pilot was found to have sailed too far south, having misjudged the distance Woodlark had traveled. As he had been a prisoner of war for nine years, the court-martial board dealt leniently with him, simply admonishing him to be more careful in the future.^[2]

Citations

^ Winfield (2008), p. 342.
^ Hepper (1994), p. 113.

References

Hepper, David J. (1994). British Warship Losses in the Age of Sail, 1650–1859. Rotherfield: Jean Boudriot. ISBN 0-948864-30-3.
Winfield, Rif (2008). British Warships in the Age of Sail 1793–1817: Design, Construction, Careers and Fates. Seaforth Publishing. ISBN 978-1-86176-246-7.