HMS Exmouth was ordered on 12 March 1840 as a 90-gun Albion-class sailing ship from Devonport Dockyard, where her keel was laid on 13 September 1841.

[1] After over a decade on the stocks, on 30 October 1852 she was ordered to be completed as a 91-gun two-decker with steam screw propulsion, and conversion began on 20 June 1853.

[2] On 12 July 1854 Exmouth was launched by the daughter of Admiral Stopford, Admiral-superintendent of the dockyard, in the presence of a crowd estimated at 2–3,000.

From 1877, the Admiralty lent Exmouth to the Metropolitan Asylums Board as a training ship, based at Grays, Essex, replacing the similar Goliath, which had been destroyed by fire in December 1875.

[6] These ships were recommended for boys supervised by the poor law authorities as an economic means of providing them with a career which also benefited the country.