Metropolitan Asylums Board no relation hospital ship
HMS Atlas was a 91-gun second rate ship which was never completed and spent her entire service in reserve or as a hospital ship. She was launched in 1860, and lent to the Metropolitan Asylums Board for use as a hospital ship in 1881, and sold to them in 1885. Atlas served until 1904, when she was sold for breaking.Hospital ship
In June 1881, the Lords of the Admiralty agreed to lend Atlas and Endymion to the Metropolitan Asylums Board along with a steam pinnace, due to an outbreak of smallpox. Atlas was to be converted into a hospital ship for 250 patients.  A third hospital ship was the Castaliâ. The Metropolitan Asylums Board was to insure Atlas and Endymion for £11,000 and £8,000 respectively. There was opposition to the proposed use of Atlas from the Thames Conservancy and other public and private bodies. Agreement had been made to lease a berth at Deptford, Kent but when the managers of a company with premises nearby learned of the proposed use of Atlas as an isolation hospital, they put pressure on the owners of the berth with the result that the owners then decided not to allow Atlas to be berthed there.She was initially stationed at Greenwich, Kent, in a berth which had been previously used for another hospital ship. This drew an objection from the shipbuilders Messrs Rennie because some of their employees refused to work near the riverside where Atlas was moored. It was also necessary to move Atlas and Endymion every time Rennie's launched a ship. Atlas was acquired by the board on 4 June, and Endymion on 5 July. Atlas housed 120 patients. In 1882, the Thames Conservancy wrote to the Metropolitan Asylums Board urging them to move Atlas and Endymion from Greenwich. The Thames Conservancy also called upon the board to pay a large claim for expenses incurred by Messrs Rennie's. At a meeting of the board, it was suggested that if moved, Atlas should be used for convalescent patients. The board decided to await the report from a Royal Commission into infectious diseases hospitals before deciding whether or not to move the ships.
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