HMS Dartmouth was a small frigate or fifth-rate ship, one of six ordered by the English Council of State on 28 December 1654, and built in 1655.

HMS Dartmouth was one of a number of ships built for The Protectorate by John Tippetts, Master Shipwright at Portsmouth Dockyard from 1650 to 1668.

[1] Tippetts learned his trade working in Denmark, which employed Dutch ship-building techniques; the archaeological survey indicates these were used to build Dartmouth, the only known English example of such a ship.

[citation needed] On April 1666, in the Second Anglo-Dutch War, Dartmouth together with the larger (fourth-rate) frigate Sapphire and the 12-gun Little Gift, captured three Dutch armed merchant ships off the coast of Ireland.

In May and June 1689 Dartmouth escorted a convoy from England to Ireland that brought a relief force, commanded by Major-General Percy Kirke, destined for Derry.

On 9 October, Dartmouth and two other smaller ships were sent to persuade the MacLeans of Duart to sign Articles of Allegiance to William III and Mary II.

The archaeological study supported traditional accounts of the ship's wrecking,[17] and revealed that parts of Dartmouth's construction differed from conventional methods used during the period.