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HMS Hero (1803)

1803 Fame-class third-rate ship of the line

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Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionJul 23, 2026
Entity authorityQ3020098 ↗
Source-derived summary

HMS Hero was a 74-gun third rate of the Royal Navy, launched on 18 August 1803 at Blackwall Yard.

She took part in Admiral Robert Calder's action at the Battle of Cape Finisterre in 1805. Later in the same year Hero was a part of the squadron commanded by Captain Sir Richard Strachan that won the Battle of Cape Ortegal.

On 25 December 1811 Hero, under captain James Newman-Newman, was wrecked on the Haak Sands at the mouth of the Texel during a gale, with the loss of all but 12 of her crew.

Citations

References

Colledge, J. J.; Warlow, Ben & Bush, Steve (2020). Ships of the Royal Navy: The Complete Record of all Fighting Ships of the Royal Navy from the 15th Century to the Present (5th revised and updated ed.). Seaforth Publishing. ISBN 978-1-5267-9327-0.

Gosset, William Patrick (1986). The lost ships of the Royal Navy, 1793-1900.

Editorial summary

This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “HMS Hero (1803)” as 1803 Fame-class third-rate ship of the line. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.

Editorial reviewA concise reference frame for defining the subject, testing terminology and identifying the institution closest to the evidence. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1803, 1805, 1811, 2020—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. The account is most persuasive where Hero, Fame-class and third-rate can be independently traced.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The subject matters to the general reference register because the source frames it as 1803 Fame-class third-rate ship of the line. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.

Evidence profile

Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 23, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q3020098. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1803, 1805, 1811 and 2020.

Critical limits

The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

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  2. Expand the search: follow HMS Hero (1803) primary sources, HMS Hero (1803) archive and Hero research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “HMS Hero (1803)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.