HMS Dromedary

Five ships of the Royal Navy have borne the name HMS Dromedary, after the dromedary:

• HMS Dromedary (1777) was a 30-gun storeship, formerly the British East India Company's East Indiaman Duke of Cumberland, launched in 1765. She made four voyages to China or India for the East India Company.[1] The Admiralty purchased her in 1777, for service as an armed escort ship. She was registered as a fifth rate from 1779. She was broken up in 1783.
• HMS Dromedary was a 24-gun storeship, originally launched in 1782 as the 44-gun fifth rate HMS Janus. She was converted to a storeship and renamed Dromedary in 1788, and was wrecked in 1800.
• HMS Dromedary was a 24-gun storeship, formerly the merchant Kaikusroo. She was purchased in 1805 as a 40-gun and named HMS Howe, and then HMS Dromedary in 1806. In 1809 she carried Lachlan Macquarie to the colony of NSW, as the replacement governor for William Bligh. [2] In 1819 she was re-commissioned as a convict ship and ferried convicts to Tasmania. She was then re-fitted as a timber transport and collected timber spars before returning to England.[2] In the 1830s she sailed for Bermuda, where she was converted to a prison hulk, and subsequently broken up in 1864.[2]
• HMS Dromedary (1862) was an iron screw troopship launched in 1862 sold in 1869.
• HMS Dromedary (1873) was an iron screw troopship, formerly the merchant Briton. She was purchased in 1873, and was sold in 1885.