List of British prison hulks

Converting the ships to prison hulks involved removal of the rigging, masts, rudders, and various other features required for sailing.

The internal structure was also reconfigured with various features, including cells, in order to accommodate convicted criminals or occasionally prisoners of war.

This made them convenient temporary holding quarters for convicts awaiting transportation to Australia and other penal colonies within the British Empire.

Most British prison hulks were decommissioned in the 19th century, although suspected and convicted criminals are still confined aboard ships on occasion for various reasons.

[2] In 1811, she was still a Prison Hospital Ship (death on board of POW Pascal FURIC, a French sailor, "phthisis pulmonalis", on 6 May 1811) ref.

Prison hulk Success [ 1 ] at Hobart , Tasmania , Australia
The forbidding form of the beached convict hulk HMS Discovery at Deptford . Launched as a 10-gun sloop at Rotherhithe in 1789, the ship served as a convict hulk from 1818 until scrapped in February 1834. [ 3 ]
The Fighting Temeraire tugged to her last berth to be broken , J. M. W. Turner , 1838, National Gallery, London
Convicts breaking up the prison hulk York (1807) , from the Illustrated London News , c. 1848, National Maritime Museum , Greenwich