Built as a steel corvette on the Chatham Dockyard for the Royal Navy.
01 September 1881 keel laid down.
07 June 1883 launched as the HMS CALYPSO, she was the 7th of that name in the Royal Navy.
Tonnage 2.770 tons, dim. 235 x 44½ x 20ft.
Powered by a steam engine manufactured by J & G Rennie, 3.000 ihp., one shaft. Speed 13.75 knots.
Barque rigged.
Armament 4 – 6 inch BL., 12 – 5 inchBL., 10 MG, 2 light guns and 2 – torpedo tubes.
Crew 317.
21 September 1885 commissioned at Chatham.
Designed by Nathaniel Barnaby and belonging to the Calypso class, one sister the GALLIOPE.
Used as a training cruiser in the Training Squadron until about 1896.
Between 1898 and 1902 paid off at Devonport.
1902 Used as a training hulk in St John by the Newfoundland government until 1922. At that time her masts were removed and she was housed over.
In 1902 the Admiralty, with the consent and cooperation of the Newfoundland Government, formed a special branch of the RNR, the Royal Newfoundland Naval Reserve. It was composed of fishermen and coastal sailors from the colony.
HMS CALYPSO was assigned as a training ship. Expenses of the RNNR were shared between the two governments. The unit had a strength of 500 P.O’s and men, all of whom served with the RN during WW I. A total of 1.500 men trained aboard the ship during WW I. Besides sending drafts to the RN, CALYPSO provided armed guards for the wireless station at Mt. Pearl, built a battery and barracks at Fort Waldegrove and manned a flotilla of minesweeping trawlers and six Q-ships for the protection of the Grand Banks fishing fleet.
CALYPSO armament was used to arm small vessels commandeered by the Newfoundland Government for the protection of shores and shipping – the Newfoundland-Labrador Patrol.
Captain Tom Dower presented the last 5” gun to the Grand Falls Branch, Newfoundland Command , RCL. It is (or was?) permanently placed in front of the RCL Hall as a memorial to the ship and the men who trained on her during her service.
15 February 1916 renamed in BRITON to free the name for a new vessel built for the Royal Navy.
07 April 1922 sold as a store hulk to A.H. Marray.
Since 1952 used as a storehulk at Lewisport, Newfoundland, (position approx. 49 15N 55 00W.)
She was later towed by a scrapper to a cove north of Lewisport who burned out the wooden decks etc., then he lost interest in the burnt out hull.
Still she was grounded in this cove 15 years ago, and most probably her remains still laying there.
( I am wondering why she is depict on a stamp of Samoa, has never been in the waters off Samoa or visited the islands, there was a other HMS CALYPSO who visited the Samoa Group in 1848 under command of Capt. John Worth, a sailing Royal Navy warship, and I believe the wrong ship is depict on the stamp.)
On Samoa 1981 sg 587, scott 546.
Source: Chatham built warships. De Laatste Grote Zeilschepen by Otmar Schaufflen. Enzyklopadia der Maritimen Philately (Navicula). MARHST List. Watercraft Philately 1983 page 40. Conway’s All the World’s Fighting Ships 1860-1905.