HMS Melita was a Royal Navy

Royal Navy

The Royal Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Founded in the 16th century, it is the oldest service branch and is known as the Senior Service...

 Mariner-class

Mariner class gunvessel

The Mariner class was a class of 8-gun gunvessels built for the Royal Navy between 1883 and 1888.-Design:...

 composite screw gunvessel of 8 guns. She was the only Royal Navy warship ever to be built in Malta

Malta

Malta , officially known as the Republic of Malta , is a Southern European country consisting of an archipelago situated in the centre of the Mediterranean, south of Sicily, east of Tunisia and north of Libya, with Gibraltar to the west and Alexandria to the east.Malta covers just over in...

, hence the name, which is the Latin name for the island. She was renamed HMS Ringdove in 1915 and sold as a salvage vessel to Falmouth Docks

Falmouth Docks

Falmouth Docks are the docks of the town of Falmouth in Cornwall, England, UK.The docks are served by the Falmouth Docks railway station. Policing is by the Falmouth Docks Police.-Further reading:...

 Board in 1920, when her name was changed to Ringdove's Aid. She was sold again in 1927 to the Liverpool & Glasgow Salvage Association

Liverpool & Glasgow Salvage Association

The Liverpool & Glasgow Salvage Association was formed on 1 January 1924 from the merger of the Liverpool Salvage Association and the Glasgow Salvage Association....

, who changed her name to Restorer, and she was finally broken up in 1937, 54 years after her keel was laid.

Construction

Designed by Nathaniel Barnaby

Nathaniel Barnaby

Sir Nathaniel Barnaby, KCB was Chief Constructor of the Royal Navy from 1872 to 1885....

, the Royal Navy Director of Naval Construction

Director of Naval Construction

The Director of Naval Construction was a senior British civil servant post in the Admiralty, that part of the British Civil Service that oversaw the Royal Navy. The post existed from 1860 to 1966....

, her hull was of composite construction; that is, iron keel, frames, stem and stern posts with wooden planking. She was fitted with a 2-cylinder horizontal compound expansion steam engine driving a single screw, which was also built in the Royal Naval dockyard at Valetta, Malta. She was rigged with three masts, with square rig on the fore- and main-masts, making her a barque

Barque

A barque, barc, or bark is a type of sailing vessel with three or more masts.- History of the term :The word barque appears to have come from the Greek word baris, a term for an Egyptian boat. This entered Latin as barca, which gave rise to the Italian barca, Spanish barco, and the French barge and...

-rigged vessel. Her keel was laid at a special slipway built for her on the Senglea

Senglea

Senglea is a fortified city in the east of Malta, mainly in the Grand Harbour area. It is one of the Three Cities in the east of Malta, the other two being Cospicua and Vittoriosa. The city of Senglea is also called Civitas Invicta, because it managed to resist the Ottoman invasion at the Great...

 side of French Creek, which was still known as the "Melita Slip" into modern times. Although laid down on 18 July 1883, work progressed slowly; the entire enterprise had been designed to employ the local workforce when the Mediterranean Fleet

Mediterranean Fleet

Several countries have or have had a Mediterranean Fleet in their navy. See:* Mediterranean Fleet * French Mediterranean Fleet* Mediterranean Squadron * United States Sixth Fleet...

 was absent, and their frequent presence caused work on the new vessel to be halted all too often. She was launched on 20 March 1888 by Princess Victoria Melita, the twelve-year-old daughter of the Duke of Edinburgh

Alfred, Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha

Alfred, Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha was the third Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, and reigned from 1893 to 1900. He was also a member of the British Royal Family, the second son and fourth child of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha...

 who was Commander-in-Chief of the British Mediterranean Fleet. The Army and Navy Gazette reported that

Her entire class were re-classified from gunvessels to sloops

Sloop-of-war

In the 18th and most of the 19th centuries, a sloop-of-war was a warship with a single gun deck that carried up to eighteen guns. As the rating system covered all vessels with 20 guns and above, this meant that the term sloop-of-war actually encompassed all the unrated combat vessels including the...

 in November 1884 long before Melita entered service.

Career

Melita was commissioned into the Royal Navy on 27 October 1892, nearly ten years after she was laid down. and served in the Mediterranean in the 1890s, recommissioning in October 1895 and again in the October of 1898. While serving in Melita during this period Lieutenant (later Rear Admiral) Edward Inglefield

Edward Fitzmaurice Inglefield

Rear Admiral Sir Edward Fitzmaurice Inglefield, KBE was a Victorian Royal Navy officer and later secretary of Lloyd's of London...

 invented the Inglefield clip

Inglefield clip

The Inglefield clip is a clip for joining a flag or ensign quickly, easily and securely to flag halyards so that the flag can be hoisted. They are also used for jib sheets on small boats and on paragliders.Each clip resembles a link of chain, with a split through one side...

 for quickly attaching flags to each other - they are still in use in the Royal Navy today. She was ordered to Devonport in 1901 and although it was stated by the Secretary to the Admiralty

Admiralty

The Admiralty was formerly the authority in the Kingdom of England, and later in the United Kingdom, responsible for the command of the Royal Navy...

 in Parliament that she would be sold, instead she became a boom defence vessel at Southampton in May 1905. She was reassigned to become a salvage vessel in December 1915, and swapped names with the Redbreast-class gunboat

Redbreast class gunboat

The Redbreast class comprised nine first-class screw-driven composite gunboats built for the Royal Navy in 1889, mounting 6 guns.-Design:...

  , thereby becoming the sixth Ringdove to serve in the Royal Navy.

Disposal

Ringdove (ex-Melita) was sold to the Falmouth

Falmouth, Cornwall

Falmouth is a town, civil parish and port on the River Fal on the south coast of Cornwall, England, United Kingdom. It has a total resident population of 21,635.Falmouth is the terminus of the A39, which begins some 200 miles away in Bath, Somerset....

 Docks Board on 9 July 1920 and renamed Ringdove’s Aid. She was sold on to the Liverpool & Glasgow Salvage Association

Liverpool & Glasgow Salvage Association

The Liverpool & Glasgow Salvage Association was formed on 1 January 1924 from the merger of the Liverpool Salvage Association and the Glasgow Salvage Association....

, which in 1927 applied her name to change her name to Restorer. She was broken up in the second quarter of 1937.