HMS Neasham (M2712/IMS49) was a for the 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...

. Their names were all chosen from villages ending in -ham. The minesweeper was named after Neasham

Neasham

Neasham is a village approximately four miles to the south east of Darlington in County Durham, England and has more than 1,000 years of history. The village sits on the banks of the river Tees which, at that point, marks the border between the counties of Durham and North Yorkshire...

 in County Durham

County Durham

County Durham is a ceremonial county and unitary district in north east England. The county town is Durham. The largest settlement in the ceremonial county is the town of Darlington...

.

Despite being completed on 15 November 1957, Neasham was held in operational reserve in a land cradle at Rosneath

Rosneath

Rosneath is a village in Argyll and Bute, Scotland. It sits on the western shore of the Gare Loch near to the tip of the Rosneath peninsula which projects south to the Firth of Clyde between the Gare Loch and Loch Long to the west, and about 2 miles from the village of Kilcreggan which is sited...

 on the Clyde until 1967. She was then transferred to the Royal Australian Navy

Royal Australian Navy

The Royal Australian Navy is the naval branch of the Australian Defence Force. Following the Federation of Australia in 1901, the ships and resources of the separate colonial navies were integrated into a national force: the Commonwealth Naval Forces...

, arriving in Sydney as deck cargo on the merchant ship Gladstone Star on 29 July 1968. After a period at the RAN base at Garden Island

Garden Island (Western Australia)

Garden Island is a slender island about ten kilometres long and one and a half kilometres wide, lying about off the Western Australian coast, to which it is now linked by a man-made causeway....

, she was converted into a diving tender and renamed HMAS Porpoise (DTV 1002/Y.280) on 13 June 1973.

Porpoise was sold in 1989.