The Royal Navy has had eight ships by the name Albion, the first a sailing line-of-battle ship launched in 1763, the most recent an aircraft carrier, later converted to commando carrier, in service between 1954 and 1973.

The last HMS Albion was a 22,000-ton 'Centaur'-Class light fleet carrier built on the Tyne by Swan Hunter & Wigham Richardson. Her keel was laid in 1944 and she was launched in May 1947, but the incomplete hull was laid up immediately after launch. She was finally completed in May 1954. In July 1958 the Albion had a foretaste of her future role when she embarked 42 Royal Marines Commando, together with all its vehicles and equipment, for deployment to the Middle East. In January 1961 she was taken in hand for conversion to a commando carrier, in which role she re-commissioned in August 1962, working up with two helicopter squadrons and 40 RM Commando before joining the Far East Fleet. In 1967 she was part of the RN task force covering the withdrawal from Aden, and in 1971 she was there for the withdrawal from Singapore and the disbandment of the Far East Fleet. In 1973 she was sold for conversion to a heavy lift vessel for North Sea oil exploration; however, this plan fell through, and she was broken for scrap at Faslane.

The first HMS Albion was built in 1763 at Deptford Dockyard to a design adapted from the lines of the old 90 gun ship Neptune of 1719. She was name ship of the 'Albion' Class of Third Rate 74 gun two-deckers, and measured 168' length overall, 139'1" on the deck x 47'3" breadth x 18'10" depth, giving a burthen tonnage of 1651 75/94. She saw action during the War of American Independence, first in July 1779 at the indecisive battle of Grenada, when the British fleet under Vice Admiral Byron narrowly avoided defeat at the hands of the French Admiral d'Estaing's superior forces. The Albion's next fleet action was in April 1780 off Dominica, when the French admiral de Guichen's forces were put to flight by a British fleet under Admiral Lord Rodney. Due to misunderstood signals Rodney's intentions were thwarted and instead of the result he had hoped for the battle petered out into a rather half-hearted pursuit.

Just a month later, on 15th May 1780, the rival fleets met again off Martinique. After days of manoeuvring the head of the British line forced an engagement with the rearmost French ships. The Albion, leading the van of the British fleet, was the most heavily engaged, and took the heaviest casualties, but this action, too, was indecisive. Four days later the fleets came to blows again; as before, this fight was indecisive, and also as before, HMS Albion was in the forefront and took the most punishment.

In 1794 the Albion was reduced to be a floating battery of 60 guns, moored at the Nore in the Thames Estuary. In April 1797, while manoeuvring to take up a new position in the Swin Channel, she ran aground; two days later, as salvage efforts continued, she broke her back and was wrecked.

The next HMS Albion was a ship-rigged sloop of 366 tons, an ex-merchant vessel bought for the Navy in 1798 - she had previously served as a hired Armed Ship, privately owned but with a Royal Navy crew. Given a powerful close-range armament of 22 carronades, she was a useful convoy escort. She was sold in 1803.

The third Royal Navy ship to bear the name Albion was launched at Perry's yard at Blackwall on the Thames in June 1802. She was a 74-gun Third Rate line-of-battle ship, 1729 tons burthen, with a crew of 590 men. In May 1803 she joined Admiral Cornwallis' fleet blockading the French naval port of Brest, though she was soon detached for service in the Indian Ocean, where she remained for some years. In 1814, after a long period under repair at Portsmouth, she became the flagship of Rear Admiral George Cockburn and took part in the war with America, the War of 1812. In the summer of 1814 she was part of the force that harried the coastline of Chesapeake Bay, operating up the Potomac and Patuxent Rivers, destroying shipping and U.S. Government property (including the White House). These operations only ended with the coming of peace in 1815. In 1816 she was part of the Anglo-Dutch fleet for the bombardment of Algiers, and in 1827 she was with the combined Anglo-French-Russian fleet under Admiral Codrington at the battle of Navarino, where the Turkish-Egyptian fleet was destroyed. This Albion was hulked as a lazaretto (quarantine ship) in 1831, and broken up in 1836.

The fourth and fifth Albion's were in service concurrently with the third. Both were cutters, the first hired between 1803 and 1808, and the second from 1808 until 1812. These small vessels - around 80 tons apiece - were armed with six 4-pounder guns and carried a crew of about 25.

The next HMS Albion was a Second Rate line-of-battle ship, name ship of a class of three 90 gun two-deckers (her sisters were HM Ships Aboukir and Exmouth).

The sixth Albion was ordered in 1839, and she was launched at Plymouth Dockyard in September 1842. 204' long over all (165'11" on the deck), 60' beam and 23'8" depth in hold, she measured 3083 tons, and had a complement of 830. She first saw action in the Crimean War at the first bombardment of Sebastopol, October 17th 1854. In the absence of her commanding officer, Captain Stephen Lushington, who was in charge of a Naval Brigade providing heavy artillery support for the besieging forces ashore, the Albion under Commander Henry Rogers joined more than 50 other British and French ships for the attack, the smaller steam-powered ships towing the sailing line-of-battle ships into action. Russian casualties were heavy, but their batteries were not seriously damaged; the Anglo-French fleet's casualties were somewhat lighter - about 500 killed and wounded in total - but the ships themselves were very roughly handled by the Russian batteries. HMS Albion had been set on fire three times, and but for the work of the tugs she would probably have gone ashore. In 1861 she was converted to steam screw propulsion at Devonport, but she was never completed for sea. She was held in reserve at Devonport for more than twenty years, and broken up in 1884.

The seventh HMS Albion was a 'Canopus'-Class battleship of 14,000 tons, with a main armament of four 12" guns, built by Thames Iron Works and launched in 1898. She first commissioned for service in 1901, and served on the China Station until 1905. Her next few years were spent in home waters, and on the outbreak of the First World War she joined the Cape and East Africa Station. In 1915 the Albion and others of the 'Canopus'-Class were in the Mediterranean, bombarding Turkish positions in the Dardanelles. Two of her sisters, HMS Goliath and Ocean, were sunk in these operations and HMS Albion herself was badly damaged by Turkish fire while covering the landings at Gallipoli. The Albion returned to British waters in 1916, and was sold for scrap in 1919.

In addition to these ships, there were also the trawler Albion II, hired in 1915 and sunk by a mine off the Isle of Wight in 1916, the Bristol Channel paddle steamer Albion hired as a minesweeper in 1915 and renamed Albion II (later Albyn) and the steam yacht Albion III hired 1915-1919.

The Disastrous Launch - 1898

Thames Ironworks had built ships in Canning Town since the mid 19th century at their yard along both sides of Bow Creek adjacent to the Thames. The Ironworks built some of the largest vessels of their time.

Because the width of the river at Bow Creek was relatively narrow, the larger vessels were built parallel to the shore and launched 'sideways' into the river. On the occasion of the launch of the Navy cruiser HMS Albion this was also to be the case.

However up to 200 people keen to get a good view of the launch had made their way to a temporary slipway 'bridge' beside a nearly completed vessel also being built in the yard for the Japanese navy, to get a better view of the occasion. The 'bridge was not designed to hold so many, and in fact, was signposted as 'dangerous', but a large crowd had gathered and those on the bridge felt they had the perfect viewpoint to see the ship launched by the Duke and Duchess of York.

Local schools were given the day off and thousands were standing watching when the 390 foot long, 74 foot wide, 6,000-ton ship slid into the water. The momentum of the vessel's launch created a large 'tidal wave' which raced along and cross river and engulfed the 'bridge', smashing it to pieces and plunging shocked onlookers into the river, where they were also smashed by the broken bridge and the inevitable debris of the launch itself. The cheers of the main crowd applauding the launch drowned their cries of panic out.

38 people perished in the incident, which happened at 2.50 pm, on the 21st of June 1898, one of the worst disasters in the area in peacetime.

Battle Honours
Algiers	1816
Navarino	1827
Crimea	1854-5
Dardanelles	1915