TS Mercury

[1] The Training Ship Mercury was one of a number of similar, mostly static training ships located round the coasts of Britain and founded during the Victorian period to provide boy recruits for the Royal Navy and mercantile marine.

[3] Initially the facility was based at Binstead on the Isle of Wight where the boys lived in the barque Illovo,[4] which was renamed Mercury.

[7] In 1914, the former Royal Navy sloop HMS Gannet was loaned from the Admiralty for use mainly as a floating dormitory and the old Illovo was sold in 1916.

[10] Its last Captain Superintendent was Commander R. F. Hoyle RNR who took charge in 1960 and operated it for eight years before TS Mercury was closed in 1968.

HMS Gannet was towed out of the Hamble River in 1970 and is now restored and preserved at the Chatham Historic Dockyard.