HMS Pioneer was a 4-gun Intrepid-class gunvessel launched on 19 January 1856 from the Pembroke Dockyard.

[2] She saw active service in China and was decommissioned in 1864.

She was commissioned to the North America and West Indies Station before serving as part of the Channel Squadron.

[4] Upon returning to Plymouth, she was sold to Marshall in October 1864 for breaking in 1865.

[1] The Queensland Governor, George Bowen, named the Pioneer River in Queensland, Australia after the ship in which he visited the river in 1862.