Her intended name was KINGSTON.
Built by the Plymouth Dockyard at Plymouth as a 4th Rate for the Royal Navy.
August 1817 her keel laid down.
08 May 1822 launched under the name HMS PORTLAND.
Tonnage 1.476 ton (bm), dim. 173 x 44½ ft.
Armament 52 guns.
After completing based at Plymouth, maybe laid up and not commissioned.
May 1834 Capt. David Price commanded her in the Mediterranean.
In 1837 she carried King Otho of Greece to Athens and a political crisis.
From 1838 until 1850 out of commission in Plymouth.
26 August 1850 commissioned again under command of Capt. Henry Chads. She sailed as flagship of Rear Admiral Fairfax Moresby to the Pacific, together with the tender COCKATRICE.
Rear Admiral Sir Fairfax Moresby 1786-1877 was Commander-in-Chief of the British Pacific Naval Station, based at Valparaiso, Chile. Upon his first visit to Pitcairn on board the PORTLAND on 7 August 1852 he was charmed by the society he found there. He arranged for the formal training of their clergyman George Hunn Nobbs, which led to his ordination.
Rear Admiral Moresby’s unceasing concern for the community saw him ordering ships under his command to call at Pitcairn and assist where possible. Noting the poverty that existed on Pitcairn, with the aid of his son Fortesque, he established a Pitcairn Fund Committee which through his generosity and that of others, saw the purchase of many agricultural tools and a whaleboat for the Pitcairners.
During this period, Rear Admiral Moresby, noting the effects of Pitcairn’s increasing population on an island of limited resources, planned for the emigration of the community to Norfolk Island in 1856.
After the agreement between Britain and the USA in 1846 by which the territories of Oregon, Washington and Idaho became American while Britain acquired Vancouver Island, there were worries that settlers from Oregon would try and take over the new colony by infiltration.
HMS PORTLAND’s visit to Esquimalt, now a major Canadian Naval base, was the first by a British flagship, and was designed to forestall this.
From May 1854 she remained out of commission at Plymouth until she was sold on 19 May 1862 to Charlton for £2.250.
Pitcairn Island 2002 $1.50 sg?, scott? 1985 6c sg?, scott?
Mostly downloaded from http://www.government.pn/NotableFigures.htm http://www.cronab.demon.co.uk/PQ.htm Ships of the Royal Navy Vol. I by J.J.Colledge.