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HMS ''Conway'' was a naval training school or "school ship", founded in 1859 and housed for most of its life aboard a 19th-century wooden battleship. The ship was originally stationed on the Mersey near Liverpool, then moved to the Menai Strait during World War II. While being towed back to Birkenhead for a refit in 1953, she ran aground and was wrecked, and later burned. The school moved to purpose-built premises on Anglesey where it continued for another twenty years. == Origins == In the mid-19th century, the demand for a reliable standard of merchant navy officers had grown to the point where ship owners decided to set up an organisation to train, and indeed educate, them properly—the Mercantile Marine Service Association. One of the first sites chosen for a school ship was Liverpool, in 1857. The ship they chose to accommodate the school, to be provided by the Admiralty and moored in the Sloyne, off Rock Ferry on the River Mersey, was the corvette HMS ''Conway''. There were to be three ''Conway''s over the years, the name being transferred to the new ship each time it was replaced. In 1861 HMS ''Winchester'' took the name, but the one that housed the school for most of its life was lent by the Royal Navy to the Mercantile Marine Service Association in 1875. This was the two-decker , a 92-gun second-rate line-of-battle ship. She was 205 ft (62.5 m) long on the gundeck, 54 ft (16 m) in beam, and displaced 4,375 long tons. During her operational life she was equipped with ten 8-inch (200 mm) guns and eighty-two 30-pounders. Launched in June 1839,〔Winfield (2004) p.92〕 she was entirely built from West African hardwoods and copper fastened, with copper sheathing anti-fouling to her under parts. She had survived the Baltic Blockade during the Crimean War, later protecting British possessions in the Caribbean and 'showing the flag' along the eastern seaboard of North America 50 years after the British surrender at Yorktown. In 1876 she was renamed ''Conway'' and moored on the Mersey. The ship, already a century old, was refitted in the dry dock at Birkenhead between 1936 and 1938. She was also fitted with a new figurehead representing Nelson, which was ceremonially unveiled by the-then Poet Laureate John Masefield, himself an old alumnus of the school (1891–1893).〔A short newsreel clip of the unveiling of the figurehead can be downloaded from the (British Pathé ) website (search for "Conway").〕 By 1953 she had already outlived both her sisters, ''Rodney'' and ''London'', by more than 70 years. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア(Wikipedia)』 ■ウィキペディアで「HMS Conway (school ship)」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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