HMS Britannia was a 100-gun first-rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy. The vessel was laid down in 1751 and launched in 1762. Nicknamed Old Ironsides, she served in the American Revolutionary War, the French Revolutionary Wars and the Napoleonic Wars, including at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805. One of the largest Royal Navy warships of her era, Britannia was one of only three British first-rates present at the battle, alongside HMS Victory and HMS Royal Sovereign. In 1806, the vessel was laid up and eventually converted into a hulk, before being broken up in 1825.
Construction
She was ordered on 25 April 1751 from Portsmouth Dockyard to the draught specified in the 1745 Establishment. She was built by Thomas Bucknall. Her keel was laid down on 1 July 1751 and she was launched on 19 October 1762. The cost of building and fitting totalled £45,844/2s/8d. Her main gundeck armament of twenty-eight 42-pounder guns was later replaced by 32-pounders. In the 1790s ten of her quarterdeck guns and two of her forecastle guns were replaced by the same number of 32-pounder carronades. She was third of seven ships to bear the name Britannia.
Service
Britannia was first commissioned in August 1778, under the command of Captain Charles Morice Pole, for the American Revolutionary War. The ship was the flagship of Vice-Admiral George Darby between April 1779 and June, at which point Rear-Admiral Sir John Lockhart-Ross replaced Darby. Britannia was coppered at Portsmouth Dockyard in January 1780, and in September Captain James Bradby assumed command. He was in turn replaced by Captain Benjamin Hall in April 1782, with Britannia being paid off in February the following year. The ship underwent a repair at Portsmouth between May 1788 and September 1790 at the cost of £35,573.
Britannia was recommissioned for the French Revolutionary War in January 1793, under the command of Captain John Holloway. She was appointed flagship to Vice-Admiral William Hotham, and sailed for the Mediterranean Sea on 11 May. There she fought in the Battle of Genoa on 14 March 1795, and at the Battle of the Hyères Islands on 13 July. In January the following year Holloway was replaced in command by Captain Shuldham Peard as the ship became flagship to Vice-Admiral Hyde Parker, and Peard handed over to Captain Thomas Foley in May. Vice-Admiral Charles Thompson took Britannia as his flagship early in 1797, and as such the ship fought at the Battle of Cape St. Vincent on 14 February, in which she had one man wounded.