Thirteen ships of the British
Royal Navy have been named '
HMS Surprise
or HMS Surprise''''', including: • , a 20-gun
sixth rate launched in 1746 and sold in 1770. • , a 28-gun sixth rate launched in 1774 and sold in 1783. •
HMS Surprize, an 18-gun
sloop, formerly the American
privateer Bunker Hill, of Salem, captured on 23 December 1778 at Grand Cul De Sac Bay,
Saint Lucia and sold in 1783. The French may have purchased her with her becoming the
Surprise that was broken up at Rochefort in 1789. • , a 10-gun
cutter purchased in 1780 and sold in 1786. • , a 10-gun cutter purchased in 1786 and sold in 1792. • , originally the French corvette
Unité, launched in 1794, captured in 1796 by ; the Royal Navy reclassified her as a sixth-rate
frigate. She was sold in 1802. This is the ship featured in the
Aubrey–Maturin series. • , a 38-gun frigate, previously named
Jacobs and launched in 1812. She was hulked as a
prison ship in 1822 and sold in 1837. • , a 2-gun
schooner on the Canadian Lakes. She was formerly the US , captured in 1814 and listed in service until 1832. • , a wooden screw
gunvessel, launched in 1856 and broken up in 1866. • , a
despatch vessel launched in 1885. She was renamed HMS
Alacrity in 1913 and was sold in 1919. • , a luxury yacht built in 1896 by Ailsa Shipbuilding for a wealthy Philadelphia banker. Was the Royal Yacht of King Leopold II of Belgium 1899–1909, Later in Russian Navy service as
Razsvet. Seized from Russia in 1918 and commissioned as a dispatch vessel. She was named
Surprise in 1920. She was sold in 1923 but returned to service in 1939 and was renamed HMS
Surprise. She caught fire and sank off Lagos Harbor in 1942. • , a
Yarrow later M-class destroyer launched in 1916 and sunk in 1917. • , a frigate. She had been laid down as HMS
Loch Carron but was renamed HMS
Gerrans Bay in 1944 before being launched in 1945. She was renamed HMS
Surprise and used as a despatch vessel later that year, she was HMY at the 1953 Coronation Review of the Fleet and was later broken up in 1965. ==Other ships==