History

In May 1705 the 50-gun ship HMS Triton added to her record as a successful prize-taker by capturing the 24-gun French corvette L'Entreprenante. The new prize, a 320 ton ship, was taken into the service as HMS Enterprise, the first of a long line of Royal Navy ships to bear the name. Most of her short career was spent in the Mediterranean, and she was lost with all hands in October 1707.

The second HMS Enterprise - 18th century spelling was flexible - was a two-decked 40-gun ship of the Fifth Rate, built at Plymouth Dock and launched in 1709. In 1711 she formed part of a strong expedition of warships and military transports under the command of Rear Admiral Sir Hovenden Walker against French possessions in Quebec and French Canada. However, poor planning, poor supply arrangements in New England, and ignorance of the pilotage of the St. Lawrence River doomed the expedition to failure, and eight transports were wrecked, with nearly 900 men drowned.

In March 1719 a small Spanish expedition landed in the Western Highlands of Scotland, making its depot at Eilean Donan Castle in Loch Duich, and raising a small force of disaffected clansmen in support of the Jacobite cause. However, HMS Enterprise, in company with HM Ships Worcester and Flamborough, was soon on the scene and, after a close-range bombardment of the castle, a landing party blew it up. The Jacobite forces and their Spanish supporters were later easily defeated at the battle of Glenshiel, and the invasion scare was soon over. Eilean Donan Castle, a well-known Highland landmark, was rebuilt in the 20th century.

Spain's intention had been for a full-scale invasion of the West of England, but their forces had been dispersed in a storm and only the West Highland landing had proceeded. In retaliation a British punitive expedition was quickly assembled and in late September 1719 HMS Enterprise sailed as part of a strong force for the Spanish port of Vigo. By 14th October bombardment from land and sea had forced the town's surrender; over 200 guns and many tons of military stores were taken as booty.

HMS Enterprise was hulked in 1740, from 1745 was used as a hospital ship and was sold in 1749 for £280.

The next Enterprise was a Spanish barca longa of 8 guns, captured in 1743 in the Mediterranean and rated as a sloop by the Royal Navy. She was employed as a despatch vessel and tender, and was sold in 1748 at Minorca.

The fourth HMS Enterprise came into service in 1744, while the Spanish prize sloop was still with the fleet in the Mediterranean. The 'new' ship was the former HMS Norwich, a Fourth Rate 50-gun ship built at Chatham in 1718, but rebuilt and reduced in guns and Rating to be a Fifth Rate 44-gun ship in 1744, when she was renamed. As HMS Enterprise she served in the Caribbean, and as escort to the valuable West Indies trade convoys, until the end of the War of the Spanish Succession in 1748, when she was laid up 'in Ordinary' (reserve). She recommissioned in 1756 at the outbreak what we now call the Seven Years' War, again for service in the West Indies and North America and resuming her duties as Atlantic convoy escort. In 1762 she was present at the siege and capture of Havana, a classic of early combined operations involving nearly 60 warships and transports enough for more than 16,00 troops. The Enterprise paid off in 1764, and in 1771 was broken up at Sheerness.

The fifth HMS Enterprise was name ship of a class of twenty seven Sixth Rate 28-gun frigates. She was launched at Deptford Dockyard in August 1774, measured 120'6" on deck and 594 tons, and carried her main armament of twenty-four 9-pdr guns on a single deck, with four 3-pdrs on the quarterdeck; she had a crew of 200 officers and men. She served throughout the War of American Independence, as cruiser and convoy escort, and decommissioned in 1784. In 1791, with the war scare known as the Spanish Armament, she was hulked as a receiving ship (floating barracks) for impressed men at the Tower of London. In 1806 she was taken to Deptford, and broken up in 1807.

The 'Enterprize' Class frigate HMS Resource (built at Rotherhithe in 1778) was renamed Enterprise in 1803, to join her sister ship at the Tower as another receiving ship, to accommodate men taken up by another 'hot Press' at the end of the Peace of Amiens and the outbreak of the Napoleonic War. She was broken up in 1816.

The next ship to carry the name HMS Enterprise was a new-built merchant vessel of 471 tons, purchased by the Admiralty in 1848 to be fitted and strengthened for Arctic exploration in search of Sir John Franklin's lost expedition. The Enterprise made two voyages to the Arctic, the first via the Atlantic in 1848-49, then in 1850-54 via the Pacific and the Bering Straits.

From 1860 she was lent to the Commissioners of Northern Lights for use as a coal hulk at Oban, and from 1889 she was lent to the Board of Trade. She was sold in 1903.