HMS Devastation (1841)

HMS Devastation was a Royal Navy Driver class steam sloop, unusually powered as a paddle steamer designed by Sir William Symonds and launched in 1841.

In November 1843, it passed to Swynfen Carnegie and in February 1844, William Hewgill Kitchen (who was later Governor of Ascension Island) took command.

From October 1845 to March 1846, she was recommissioned at Woolwich and put under Commander Edward Crouch and became part of the Squadron of Evolution serving off the west coast of Africa passing to Captain Charles Hotham in May 1846.

From 1853 to 1858, she stayed in the West Indies under successive command of: Algernon Frederick Rous de Horsey; Edward Marshall; Leveson Somerset; Charles Wake; and John Kennedy Erskine Baird.

[5] Still in the Pacific at Christmas 1864 command passed to the Hon Walter Hylton Joliffe who returned her to England in August 1866.