History of HMS Devonshire. From Sail to Turbine - Barfleur is a familiar name in Naval histories. Off this cape on the Cherbourgh peninsula in May 1692, in a day long action broken off only in the evening fog, a combined Anglo Dutch fleet commanded by Captain Henry Houghton shattered the French under Admiral Tourville. Two days later the battle was resumed some 30 miles to the West, off Cap de la Hague.

Tourville, utterly defeated, lost twelve of his ships. Many others escaped by running through the dangerous race of Alderney and four sailed round Scotland before reaching the safety of a French port.

In the centre of the Allied fleet at Barfleur was an 80 gun ship of the line that had been commissioned only ten days before going into action. She was the Devonshire and she had been built not on the Thames but at the small Hampshire village of Bursledon on the Hamble River.

Her timbers were of English oak, doubtless from the New Forest nearby. And her name commemorated not a county but an individual: it was a recognition by King William III of the services of William Cavendish, Earl of Devonshire, in helping to overthrow James II.

Four years after Barfleur Devonshire was again at grips with the enemy, when an English squadron of five ships under help of a fresh gale they entered Brest unscathed.

This first Devonshire career had begun gloriously. It was to end in disaster. On 10th October 1707 she was one of three 80 gun ships and two 50s, under Commodore Richard Edwards, which escorted a Lisbon bound convoy of 130 merchantmen out of Plymouth.

The following day, off the Lizard, they were sighted by two French squadrons 14 warships in all led by the famous Duguay Trouin. The English squadron, heavily outnumbered interposed itself between the convoy and the enemy. Cumberland, Chester and Rose were soon overwhelmed and taken. Devonshire put up remarkable resistance against five enemy ships but, towards evening, blew up; Picture shows Devonshires last minutes- of her Captain and crew of over 900, there were but two survivors. Only the Royal Oak came through the battle she managed to limp into Kinsale but most of the convoy had been saved.

The second Devonshire, launched at Woolwich in December 1710, was again a ship of the line, with the same armament and almost the same tonnage and dimensions as her predecessor. But her career was much less eventful. In 1711, commanded by Captain John Cooper, she sailed as part of Admiral Hovenden Walker's ill fated expedition to Quebec, though she was too big to negotiate the St Lawrence and her main task was to escort the storeships.

Only once more is she heard of on active service in the Baltic six years later, one of the 36 ships under Admiral Sir George Byng which co operated with Danish and Dutch units. In 1740 she was relegated to a hulk at Woolwich and 20 years later was sold for a mere £285.

The third Devonshire also was built at Woolwich, in 1745, but she was more often in the news than her predecessor. A 1,400 ton ship of the line with an armament of 80 guns, later cut down to 66, she took part in the later naval operations of the war of the Austrian succession. In 1747, under Captain Temple West, she sailed in Vice Admiral Anson's Channel Fleet which on 3rd May sighted, off Cape Finisterre, a French squadron of 14 men of war escorting a valuable convoy. In a three hour running fight 13 French ships, including six merchantmen, were taken and only nightfall saved many others. Devonshire excelled herself by capturing the 60 gun Serieux which was flying the flag of the French commander, Admiral de la Jonquiere.

Devonshire under a new commander, Captain John Moore, was involved in a similar operation five months later, off the French coast. 10 French warships were escorting more than 200 merchant vessels. Admiral de I'Etenduere at first mistook the English squadron for part of his own convoy but, quickly realising the danger, detached one of his ships to escort the merchantmen to safety they reached port unharmed and turned to face Rear Admiral Hawke's fleet. Though the French fought with great stubbornness they were eventually overwhelmed and six of their ships of the line were taken. Devonshire forced two of the enemy to strike and then bore down to capture Le Terrible.

Perhaps her most momentous voyage was in 1759 in Vice Admiral Saunders' amphibious expedition to North America. The fleet left Spithead on 17th February and four months later was to be found anchored in the St Lawrence river, a few miles below Quebec. There were 10,000 troops aboard the transports. A fireship attack was repulsed and the soldiers were landed the assault which culminated in the famous struggle between Montcalm and Wolfe on the Heights of Abraham.

The following year, Devonshire was still operating in the St Lawrence. In May she was before Quebec, frustrating a French attempt to regain the citadel; later she took part in the operations leading to the capture of Montreal, during which she sank a large number of privateers in the river.

On the West Indies station three years later Devonshire co operated with Rear Admiral Rodney in amphibious operations against the key French island of Martinique. The attack began on 16th January. After a bombardment had silenced the batteries guarding the main anchorage at Fort Royal the troops were disembarked and the whole island was in English hands a month later. That same year, one of great achievement for English arms in the Caribbean, Devonshire joined Admiral Sir George Pocock's fleet in the attack on the Spanish naval base at Havana.

At the end of May the expeditionary force, more than 200 ships, succeeded in negotiating the dangerous passage of the Old Bahama Channel. After prolonged Spanish resistance, especially from the fortress of El Moro, the city fell on 14th August. The booty taken was immense and no less than 18 warships were burnt or captured in the harbour. On the return voyage to England Pocock's fleet was caught in a severe hurricane. 12 transports and one warship foundered; Devonshire might have shared the same fate, had she not jettisoned many of her guns. The voyage was her swan song. She had served the Royal Navy continuously for more than 50 years and was worn out. In 1772 she was broken up.

Little is known of the fourth Devonshire apart from the fact that she was a merchant vessel incorporated into the Navy as a fireship. Her only occasion in action was her last. In October 1804 a mixed force under Admiral Lord Keith attacked French batteries and gunboats at Boulogne. The fireships were towed by armed launches as near to the enemy as possible. But the operation was a failure; Devonshire blew up and three other fireships and four launches were lost without achieving anything.

The last sailing vessel to be called Devonshire in the Royal Navy was a 74 gun battleship classed as a third rate. Launched at Deptford in September 1812, she played no part in the last years of the Napoleonic war and our knowledge of her is limited to a much later period. In 1849 she served temporarily as a seamen's hospital at Greenwich, while Dreadnought was under repair. From 1854 to 1869, when she was broken up, she lay at Sheerness serving firstly as accommodation for Russian prisoners of war and later as a training ship.

It is interesting to note the name Devonshire has never been carried continuously in the Royal Navy. Generally there was a lapse of a few years between the demise of one ship and the launching of another with that same name. But between numbers five and six the gap was more than three decades. It was not until April 1904 that another Devonshire took the water, at Chatham. She was a cruiser, a twin screw steel armoured ship of nearly 11,000 tons, mounting ten 7.5 and 6 inch guns as main armament.
 
Though she served throughout World War 1 she was not present at the more famous actions. In the early part she was attached to the Third Cruiser Squadron of the Grand Fleet and was in the Dogger Bank operation. Later she was transferred to the West Atlantic first to the North America and later the West Indies stations and was finally disposed of in May 1921.

Her successor, also, was a cruiser, one of those handsome vessels with three distinctive tunnels and eight 8 inch guns known as the County class.

By now the Navy had forgotten that the name Devonshire originally commemorated an individual rather than an area of country. Built at the Devonport yard, she was completed in 1929. Her machinery was constructed by Vickers Armstrongs. Prior 'to World War 11, in which she served with distinction, this seventh Devonshire acted partly as a cadet training ship. She joined the Home Fleet from the Mediterranean at the end of 1939 and took part in the Norwegian campaign, evacuating troops from Namsos and, later, King Haakon VII from Tromso.

During 1941 she operated in the South Atlantic where, on 22nd November, she intercepted and sank the disguised German raider Atlantis which had sunk or captured 22 Allied ships in as many months. In the following year Devonshire transferred to the Indian Ocean and took part in the amphibious operations against Madagascar. Later in the war she rejoined the Home Fleet and appropriately formed part of the escort which brought the exiled Norwegian government back to Oslo in May 1945.

HMS Devonshire and HMS Sussex had their X-turret removed towards the end of WWII to allow increases in their AA battery.

Displacement: 9,750 tons standard; 13,220 tons full load
Dimensions: 595 pp, 633 oa x 66 x 17 feet
Propulsion: 4 shaft Parsons geared turbines, 8 Admiralty3-drum boilers, 80,000 shp. = 32.25 knots
Range: 2,930 miles at 31 knots, 12,500 miles at 12 knots; 3,210 tons fuel oil
Complement: 700
Armament: 4 dual 8-inch / 50 Mk 8; 4 single 4-inch / 45QF Mk 5 HA (4 further 4-inch added, 4 dual Mk 16 in HMS London); 2 quad and 4 single 2 pdr; 2 quad 0.5-inch AA (added 1936-1939); 2 quad 21-inch TT.; 1 seaplane (later 3)
Armour: 1 to 4 inch magazine box protection; 1.375 inch deck; 1 inch side-plating, turrets and bulkheads (4.5 inch narrow belt and 3.5 inch internal boiler room sides added 1938-1941)

The seventh Devonshire became a Training ship 1947-1953. She was finally broken up by Cashmore, Newport, Wales in 1954.

By then the name had been carried in the Royal Navy by seven ships over a period of more than 250 years. In 1962 an eighth Devonshire was completed. The first of a new class of guided missile destroyers, eight of these County class destroyers were built with Devonshire as the lead ship. Their main armament is the Seaslug anti aircraft missile which was the Navy's first medium range system.

The prime role of the latest Devonshire is to provide the air defence of the Fleet In addition, the Wessex helicopter is a very potent weapon against all types of submarine.
Because of their facilities and communications outfit, the County class are often used as Command ships by Admirals.

In the eighteen years since Devonshire was launched she has been to most parts of the world and the list reflects Britain's interests in the sixties and seventies.

As well as the usual deployments to the Far East, Australia, America, Mediterranean, Africa and Europe, Devonshire has twice visited Russia.

The eighth Devonshire has seen an era of peace and no further battle honours have been added. One wonders what form the ninth will take?