She served in the Baltic Sea during the Crimean War and then in North America, West Africa and Australia.

Ordered on 2 April 1853, she was laid down in November the same year and launched on 10 August 1854 at Plymouth Dockyard.

[1][2] She served in the Baltic Sea during the Crimean War and participated in the blockade off the coast of Courland.

[3] She was refitted in Portsmouth in 1858,[2] On 4 June 1859, she assisted HMS Flying Fish in rescuing survivors from the troopship Eastern Monarch, which had suffered an onboard explosion, caught fire and sank off Spithead.

In 1861,[5] Falcon was stationed off Jenkins Town, on the River Sherbro, Sierra Leone, commander Algernon Heneage.