HMS Lizard (1757)

HMS Lizard was a 28-gun Coventry-class sixth-rate frigate of the Royal Navy, with periods of service between 1757 to 1828. Named after the Lizard, a peninsula in southern Cornwall, she was a broad-beamed and sturdy vessel designed for lengthy periods at sea. Her crewing complement was 200 and, when fully equipped, she was armed with 24 nine-pounder cannons, supported by 4 three-pounders and 12 1⁄2-pounder swivel guns. Despite her sturdy build, she was plagued with maintenance problems and had to be repeatedly removed from service for repair.

Lizard's early seagoing service included active duty during the Seven Years' War from 1757–1763, during which she assisted in major naval operations in the Caribbean and North America, including the British capture of Quebec City and the Siege of Havana. After three years as a peacetime privateer-hunter between 1771–1774, she resumed wartime service during the American Revolutionary War from 1775–1782, and aided British efforts between 1790–1794 in the leadup and early years of the French Revolutionary War including patrolling the North Sea for privateers. In these periods of service Lizard secured 43 victories at sea, principally against American and French merchant vessels and privateers.

Removed from seagoing duty in 1794, Lizard was refitted as a hospital ship and assigned to a berth near Burntwick Island where she received merchant seamen suspected of suffering from diseases including yellow fever and bubonic plague. What had been intended as a temporary assignment continued for 28 years, with Lizard eventually becoming the last of the Coventry-class vessels still in operation. She was removed from service, 71 years after her launch, and sold to private ownership at Sheerness Dockyard in September 1828.