Prison Hulk and Disposal
Having discharged Napoleon, Bellerophon sailed to Sheerness, and anchored there on 2 September. There she was paid off for the last time, and stripped of her guns and masts. With no further need for many ships following the end of the Napoleonic Wars, Bellerophon joined a number of ships laid up in this manner. A report on 16 October 1815 advised moving a number of convicts previously housed aboard the former HMS Portland into more suitable accommodation. The report suggested that "The class of ship, which I take the liberty of observing as most suitable for this service, would be a seventy-four, of about the same dimensions as the Bellerophon in the river Medway, being of easy draft of water and lofty between decks." The report was approved and the suggestion acted upon. Bellerophon was taken into Sheerness Dockyard in December 1815 and spent nine months fitting out as a prison ship.
The work was completed at a cost of £12,081 and the prisoners were transferred in January 1817. Bellerophon generally held around 435 prisoners during her time in this role, although in 1823 changes in legislation resulted in the adult prisoners being transferred out of Bellerophon and the ship instead being used to house boy prisoners, with 320 arriving in early 1824. In 1824 the decision was taken to rename HMS Waterloo, an 80-gun ship launched in 1818, HMS Bellerophon. To free the name, the former HMS Bellerophon was renamed Captivity on 5 October 1824. She continued as a prison ship for boys until early 1826, when it was decided that the arrangement of the internal spaces made her unsuitable for workshops. The boys were transferred to another hulk, the former HMS Euryalus, and it was decided to move Captivity to Plymouth. The ship was taken into Sheerness Dockyard in April 1826, and was fitted out for the journey to Plymouth. She arrived there in June and spent the last eight years of her working existence as a convict hulk in Plymouth. By 1834 the rate of penal transportation had been drastically increased to clear out the old hulks. When the last convicts had left Captivity, she was handed back to the Navy Department, who put her up for sale. She was sold at Plymouth for £4,030 on 21 January 1836. Advertisements in the local Plymouth, Devonport and Stonehouse News in September 1836 announced the auctioning off of her timber.
Read more about this topic: HMS Bellerophon (1786)
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