HMS Bellerophon, known to sailors as the "Billy Ruffian", was a 74-gun third-rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy. Launched in 1786, Bellerophon served for the entire duration of the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, mostly on blockades or convoy escort duties. She fought in three fleet actions: the Glorious First of June (1794), the Battle of the Nile (1798) and the Battle of Trafalgar (1805). While the ship was on blockade duty in 1815, Napoleon boarded Bellerophon so he could surrender to the ship's captain, ending 22 years of almost continuous war between Britain and France.
Built at Frindsbury, near Rochester in Kent, Bellerophon was initially laid up in ordinary, briefly being commissioned during the Spanish and Russian Armaments. She entered service with the Channel Fleet on the outbreak of the French Revolutionary Wars in 1792, and took part in the Glorious First of June in 1794, the first major fleet action of the wars. Bellerophon narrowly escaped being captured by the French in 1795, when her squadron was nearly overrun by a more powerful French fleet at the First Battle of Groix, but the bold actions of the squadron's commander, Vice-Admiral Sir William Cornwallis, caused the French to retreat. She played a minor role in efforts to intercept a French invasion force bound for Ireland in 1797, and then joined the Mediterranean Fleet under Sir John Jervis. Detached to reinforce Rear-Admiral Sir Horatio Nelson's fleet in 1798, she took part in the decisive defeat of a French fleet at the Battle of the Nile, where she suffered severe damage and lost several officers while engaging the much larger French flagship Orient. She returned to England before being sent to the West Indies, where she spent the Peace of Amiens (1802–03) on cruises and convoy escort duty between the Caribbean and North America.
Bellerophon returned to European waters with the resumption of the wars with France, joining a fleet under Vice-Admiral Cuthbert Collingwood blockading Cádiz. The reinforced fleet, by then commanded by Horatio Nelson, engaged the combined Franco-Spanish fleet when it emerged from port. At the Battle of Trafalgar on 21 October Bellerophon fought a bitter engagement against Spanish and French ships, sustaining heavy casualties including the death of her captain, John Cooke. Following the battle, she escorted Nelson's body back to England. After repairs, Bellerophon was employed blockading the enemy fleets in the English Channel and North Sea.
Bellerophon was sent to the Baltic Sea in 1809, making attacks on Russian ships, and by 1810 was off the French coast again, blockading their ports. She went out to North America as a convoy escort between 1813 and 1814, and in 1815 was assigned to blockade the French Atlantic port of Rochefort. In July 1815, defeated at Waterloo and finding escape to North America barred by the blockading Bellerophon, Napoleon came aboard "the ship that had dogged his steps for twenty years" (according to maritime historian David Cordingly) to finally surrender to the British. It was Bellerophons last seagoing service. She was paid off and converted to a prison ship in 1815, and was renamed Captivity in 1824 to free the name for another ship. Moved to Plymouth in 1826, she continued in service until 1834, when the last convicts left. The Admiralty ordered her to be sold in 1836; she was subsequently broken up for scrap. Bellerophons long and distinguished career has been recorded in literature and folk songs.
Construction and commissioning Bellerophon was ordered from the commercial shipbuilder Edward Greaves and Company, of Frindsbury in Kent, on 11 January 1782 to a modified design originally developed by Surveyor of the Navy Sir Thomas Slade. She was one of ten ships built to the modified design, originally developed by Slade in 1758 and used to build two ships, and . The design was resurrected and slightly altered in 1774, and approved by the Admiralty on 25 August that year. The keel was laid down at Frindsbury in May 1782. Measuring on the gundeck and on the keel, she had a beam of , measured 1,612 tons burthen and mounted 74 guns. This armament consisted of twenty-eight 32-pounder guns on her lower gundeck, twenty-eight 18-pounder guns on the upper gundeck, fourteen 9-pounder guns on the quarterdeck and four 9-pounder guns on the forecastle.
The ship was named Bellerophon, a decision that had been arrived at by at least April 1782, when it was entered into the minutes of the Surveyor's Office. The First Lord of the Admiralty at the time, John Montagu, 4th Earl of Sandwich, had apparently selected the name from Lemprière's Classical Dictionary, which he kept on his desk. The recently ordered 74-gun ship was thereafter to be named after the Greek warrior Bellerophon who rode the winged horse Pegasus and slew the monster Chimera. The pronunciation proved difficult for the ordinary sailors of the period, and she was widely known by variants, most commonly "Billy Ruffian" or "Billy Ruff'n", although "Belly Ruff One" appears in a satirical 1810 print by Thomas Rowlandson, and "Bellyruffron" in the novel Poor Jack by Frederick Marryat. She was decorated with a figurehead of Bellerophon.
By the time Bellerophon was launched, there was no pressing need for new warships. The signing of the Treaty of Paris in 1783 brought the American War of Independence to an end while Bellerophon was still under construction. Though Greaves had been contracted to have her ready for launching by April 1784, she spent another two years on the slipway, probably because the Navy Board ordered construction work to be delayed to allow her timber to be seasoned, a luxury available now that there were no pressing military needs. When the launch came, it was delayed several times, finally taking place during a period of heavy autumn storms in October 1786. She was launched with little ceremony on 7 October 1786, by Commissioner Charles Proby, of Chatham Dockyard. She was then towed across the River Medway and anchored off Chatham Dockyard. She was taken into the dry dock there on 7 March 1787, where her hull was fitted with copper sheathing, and she was fitted for the Ordinary. Her final costs came to £30,232.14.4d paid to Greaves for building her, and a further £8,376.15.2d spent on fitting her for service.
Laid up at Chatham during the years of peace, Bellerophon was not commissioned until July 1790, when the crisis known as the Spanish Armament broke out. As war with Spain threatened, warships lying in ordinary began to be commissioned and fitted for sea. Bellerophons first commander, Captain Thomas Pasley, arrived on 19 July and began the process of preparing her for service. After a month spent fitting out the ship with guns, masts, stores and rigging, and recruiting a crew, Pasley gave the orders for his crew to slip the moorings on 16 August, and Bellerophon made her way down the Medway to the fleet anchorage at the Nore.
From the Nore, Bellerophon proceeded to the Downs and joined the fleet stationed there. She spent three weeks in the roadstead, exercising her guns, before moving to Spithead. The diplomatic crisis with Spain had largely abated by October 1790, and Bellerophon was sent to Sheerness in late November. She remained in commission, still under Pasley, during the Russian Armament in 1791, but when this period of tension also passed without breaking into open war, Bellerophon was sent back to Chatham and paid off there on 9 September 1791.
Figurehead The ship's figurehead depicts Bellerophon, a prominent warrior of Greek mythology who was persuaded to fight the Chimaera, a monster part lion, part goat and part dragon. Using the magic of the goddess Minerva, he caught the winged horse, Pegasus, and with its help slayed the monster. The figurehead has its right arm raised, ready to strike with a javelin.
The carver is unknown but was possibly a member of the Crichley family of carvers.
In 1836, the Admiral Superintendent at Portsmouth Dockyard Sir Frederick Maitland (Captain of HMS Bellerophon 1815–1818) obtained the figurehead and stern carvings. They were placed in a mould-loft at Portsmouth but unfortunately decayed. Only the head now remains. The figurehead was commemorated in the John Player & Son's cigarette cards, 1912 series, number 6.
Both the 1786 and 1824 figureheads earned the nickname 'Billy Ruffian'; it is believed this originated from sailors who found the Greek name difficult to say.
The figurehead can be seen on display at the National Museum of the Royal Navy, Portsmouth. It can also be viewed alongside other figureheads within the collection on the Bloomberg Connects website and app.
French Revolutionary Wars
Following Revolutionary France's declaration of war on Britain on 1 February 1793, Bellerophon was commissioned in March under her former captain, Thomas Pasley. Pasley fitted her for sea and sailed to join the Channel Fleet under Admiral Lord Howe. The Channel Fleet sailed on 14 July, with orders to patrol off Brest in the hope of intercepting and destroying the French fleet based there. While south-west of the Scilly Isles on 18 July, Bellerophon collided with in gale-force winds. Bellerophon lost her bowsprit, foremast and main topmast, and had her figurehead and cutwater smashed, which necessitated putting into Plymouth for repairs.
After being repaired, Bellerophon rejoined the Channel Fleet, which by now was patrolling the Western Approaches. She developed a reputation for speed during these duties, and was given the nickname of "The Flying Bellerophon". In September 1793 Howe assigned her to a flying squadron made up of the fastest ships of the line, and gave Pasley command of the squadron, with the temporary rank of commodore.
On 27 November 1793, the ships of Pasley's squadron captured the French corvette Blonde. At the time of her capture Blonde was armed with 28 guns and had a crew of 210 men under the command of Citizen Gueria. A subsequent prize money notice listed the vessels that shared in the proceeds as Bellerophon, , , , and . With Pasley now responsible for a squadron, Bellerophon received a new commander in January 1794, Captain William Johnstone Hope, with Commodore Pasley continuing to fly his broad pennant aboard her. For the next five months the Channel Fleet patrolled off Ushant and the Brittany coast.
Glorious First of June