What to do about prison hulks?

Question

It's my day for questions apparently. Just came across a discussion on English prison hulks from some years ago. Not many on the list yet. I note one is Euryalus, the very same ship according to Wikipedia that served at Trafalgar. Under that category she is HMS Euryalus (date). Should the prison hulk be given the same name so that that is evident or should she be left as is. Categorising wouldn't help make the connection clear, it would need a free space profile. Quite happy to do the work myself since there is not much to be done as yet. However Euryalus wasn't HMS when she was a prison ship, or was she?

Comments

I see you found where my gt grandfather was in residence on Euryalis. He was 13.

To my knowledge she wasn't HMS at that time.

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May I ask, what is a prison "hulk"?  I have never heard the expression.

Thanks!

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Old unwanted ships that were used as prisons notably after the Napoleonic wars but well into the 19th Cent. I also seem to recall that a ship was used as a prison in the 20th C when we ran out of prison accommodation. A hulk was a ship that had had most of its working bites removed, I believe. There were scores in Portsmouth harbour in the 1830s or so.

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By the way there's an interesting pictures painted by a French prisoner here [https://www.wikitree.com/photo.php/d/d1/Grindall-35-1.jpg]. Hope I did that right! Note that the hulks in the foreground would have been aground at low water.

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Rosemary. What do you feel about my proposal to re-categorise her. I also recall that often the prison guards were Royal Marines. However this Euryalus wan't broken up until 1860 but another had been commissioned in 1853. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Euryalus Wikipedia: HMS Euryalus]

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I would rather Euryalis, during her career as a hulk, was known without the HMS. In 1825 she was paid off (decommissioned) in Deptford and wasn't recommissioned. She had been paid off once before in 1815 but was recommissioned within a few weeks.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Euryalus_(1803)

Answer 1

C. Mackinnon.  I knew a hulk belonged to a ship, I just never considered there being prisons on a ship, until you wrote that! :)  Thank you!!

Comments

Betty, the ship was converted to a prison. These were moored off-shore and couldn't go anywhere on their own - no masts, no sails, I'm not sure they even had a steering mechanism.

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Some like [https://www.wikitree.com/photo.php/e/e7/Pindar-60.jpg  HMS Warrior were moored alongside as here.] Love this because relatives of my grandmother were prisoners on her while a relative of her husband was a guard at about the same time, long before either was born.

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Oh, now that makes more sense.  I had visions of a ship full of prisoners just floating around.  LOL  Had no idea, Rosemary!  One of those "taking it literally" moments I have on occasion.

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That is a VERY interesting photo C. Mackinnon!!!  I saved it for my desktop!  Thanks.

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Strange, I get access denied when I click that link, yet when I copied and pasted it into another page, it worked fine.

Answer 2

Sorry for being late to the conversation. I have "ships" in my watched tags, but not "prison hulks".

Personally, I would consider the use as a prison hulk part of the ship's career, which I try to document from launch to the end (whether the ship is sunk, lost, or broken up).