HMS Esk was a 21-gun Highflyer-class screw corvette launched on 12 June 1854 from J. Scott Russell & Co., Millwall.

Esk was built in exchange for HMS Greenock (which went to the Australian Royal Mail Co.) by J. Scott Russell & Co.

The words of the Admiralty Order stated she should be "a wood screw vessel complete of Highflyer's [class] in exchange when built".

[1] This made her a small wooden frigate to a design by the Surveyor's Department of the Admiralty on 25 April 1847; she and her sister Highflyer were redesignated as corvettes in 1854.

Her oscillating two-cylinder inclined single-expansion steam engine, provided by the builders, was quite different from Highflyer's, but developed broadly the same power — 657 indicated horsepower (490 kW) — and drove a single screw.