page_title: HMS Calliope (1884)
section_title: In reserve
hierarchical_section_title: HMS Calliope (1884) / In reserve
caption_attribution_description: English: HMS Calliope harboured at Blyth in Northumberland about 1920. The stern has a false gallery. There is a gabled shed erected above the quarterdeck, between the poop and the stack.
context_page_description: HMS Calliope was a Calypso-class corvette of the Royal Navy of the United Kingdom which served from 1887 until 1951. Exemplifying the transitional nature of the late Victorian navy, Calliope was a sailing corvette—the last such ship built for the Royal Navy—but supplemented the full sail rig with a powerful engine. Steel was used for the hull, and like the earlier iron-hulled corvettes, Calliope was cased with timber and coppered below the waterline, in the same manner as wooden ships.
  Calliope was known for "one of the most famous episodes of seamanship in the 19th century", when the vessel was the only ship present to avoid being sunk or stranded in the tropical cyclone that struck Apia, Samoa in 1889. After retirement from active service, Calliope served as a training ship until 1951, when the old corvette was sold for breaking.
context_section_description: Arriving back home in early 1890, Calliope was placed in reserve and remained there for the next seven years. In June 1897 the cruiser was present at Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee Review of the Fleet at Spithead. That same year Calliope became a tender to HMS Northampton, an older and larger armoured cruiser used as seagoing training ship for boys. Calliope also was occasionally used as a training cruiser, and toured the Mediterranean from February to April in 1900 under Captain Henry Peter Routh, and again in March 1901, and March 1902. Captain Erasmus D. St. A. Ommanney commanded the vessel during the summer of 1902 on a training cruise in home waters, visiting Campbeltown, Belfast Lough, Portishead, Dartmouth, Lyme Regis and Guernsey. In November 1902 the cruiser visited the Spanish city of Ferrol, then Gibraltar and Mahón on Menorca.
  Relieved of tender duty in 1905, Calliope was returned to reserve and promptly stricken from the effective list. The cruiser laid up at Portsmouth, and in 1906 was listed for sale for a time. The next year Calliope was moved to North East England for a new career.
caption: Calliope at Blyth in Northumberland c. 1920
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