HMS Enterprise - Definition and Overview

Ten ships of the Royal Navy (and several British ships not commissioned into the Navy) have been named HMS Enterprise or HMS Enterprize.

• The first ship of the British Navy named Enterprise was the French frigate L'Entreprise of 24 guns, captured from the French in 1705. After capture she served as a sixth-rate in the British Navy.
• The second Enterprize was a fifth-rate of 40 guns launched in 1709.
• The third Enterprize, 8, was a barca longa captured from Spain in 1743 in the Mediterranean and rated as a sloop. She was employed as a despatch vessel and tender, and was sold in 1748 at Minorca.
• The fourth Enterprize was Norwich of 50 guns, rebuilt and reduced to a fifth-rate of 44 guns in 1744 and in service until 1764.
• The fifth Enterprize, 28, the lead ship of a class of 27 sixth-rate frigates, was launched in 1774 and served until 1784, then as a receiving ship thereafter.
• The British East India Company's armed paddle steamer Enterprise served alongside the Fleet in the First China War from 1839 to 1840 and the Second Burmese War in 1852, but was not a commissioned warship and so not entitled to the "HMS" ship prefix.
• The sixth Enterprise was a merchant vessel purchased in 1848 for Arctic exploration.
• The seventh Enterprise was a sloop of war launched in 1864 and sold in 1884.
• An uncommissioned tugboat named Enterprise was in service at Portsmouth Dockyard from 1899 to 1919 when she was renamed Emprise. (She continued to serve until 1947.)
• Another Enterprise was an uncommissioned auxiliary patrol anti-submarine net drifter with Harwich Local Forces from 1914 to 1918.
• Enterprise II was an uncommissioned drifter, originally based at Larne but transferred to Italian waters in November 1915. In March 1916 she struck a naval mine off Brindisi and sank with eight casualties.
• The eighth Enterprise was an Emerald-class light cruiser, launched in 1919 and in service during World War II.
• The ninth Enterprise (A71) was an Inshore Survey ship in service from 1959 to 1985.
• The tenth Enterprise (H88) is a multi-role Survey Vessel (Hydrographic/Oceanographic) launched in 2002 and commissioned in 2003.

See also

• USS Enterprise for United States Navy ships named Enterprise.
• Enterprise for other things named Enterprise.