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The following has been adapted from an article that appeared in the winter 1957 edition of the Caledonia magazine entitled: The History of Caledonia, supplemented by up to date details of the site taken from the Royal Navy web site.
The very first plans were prepared in 1796 and work was eventually started in 1805. Three years later the ship, 2616 tons and an armament of 120 guns, was launched, and after fitting was sent to join the Channel Fleet under the command of Admiral Lord Gambier. Three years were spent campaigning against the French. The most notable engagements were firstly at Pointe du Che, where three brigs were captured, and in 1810 an attack was made on the French squadron in the Basque Roads. It is for this action that Caledonia has its only Battle Honour.
HMS Caledonia then went to the Mediterranean where she took part in the blockade of Toulon. During this time Vice Admiral Pellow appointed Caledonia as his flagship, and this eventually resulted in her action against the batteries at Cassis. In this action three gunboats and twenty-four merchant ships were captured. There was a final action in 1814 when, with HMS Boyne, the French ships Regulus and Adrienne were attacked.
There then followed fifteen years in the Reserve Fleet until 1831 when she was re-commissioned, again for the Mediterranean, being the flagship of Vice-Admiral Sir I Rowley Bt, C-in-C Mediterranean. 1837 however, saw her back in reserve, and in 1840 Caledonia was again re-commissioned. She served in various stations until 1855 when she was fitted out as a hospital ship for service in the Crimean War. In 1856 Caledonia went to Greenwich where she was named Dreadnought. Eventually, after seventy years of service, she was broken up.
In 1860, however, plans were started for the second Caledonia, and in 1862 a Screw Ironclad vessel of 4125 tons, 24 guns, and with engines capable of 1000 hp, was launched at Woolwich. From 1865 to 1875 Caledonia was on various commissions mainly in the Mediterranean. In 1873 she was used as a Coastguard ship at Rockferry, Cheshire, and from 1875 to 1885 she was in the Reserve Fleet at Devonport. Eventually the Admiralty had no further use for her and she was sold into private ownership.
The third Caledonia was originally built in 1810 and named Impregnable. In 1816, at the bombardment of Algiers, she was heavily engaged and suffered severe losses. Fifty of her crew were killed and a hundred and sixty received wounds, while the ship herself was hit by two hundred and fifty shots, mainly in the hull. The next record was in 1888 when she was renamed Kent, and in 1891 she was renamed Caledonia. The last five years of her life were spent at Queensferry, serving as a training ship until 1906 when she was sold for breaking up.
The fourth Caledonia was originally the White Star liner Majestic. On the 21st April 1937 she was commissioned by Captain Sir Atwell Lake to be a training establishment for both boy seamen and artificer apprentices until such time as a permanent establishment could be erected on shore at Rosyth.
At the outbreak of the Second World War it was decided that the ship offered too large a target so the boy seamen were evacuated to the Isle of Man and the apprentices were billeted in King’s Road School in Rosyth until the end of 1940 when the establishment was considered to be sufficiently finished to accommodate the apprentices.
A Naval establishment has thus occupied the present site since 1939 when building of the shore training facility for Artificer Apprentices commenced. Completed in 1940, it was commissioned as HMS Caledonia, the Royal Naval Artificer Training Establishment Rosyth. and operated as a single facility unit until 1977 when, with the introduction of a harbour training squadron comprising HM Ships Eastbourne and Duncan, it was effectively divided into two operational units, the main area, the camp itself, where apprentices completed their academic training, and the harbour squadron in the non-tidal basin of the dockyard. This second unit provided "hands on" experience of main propulsion machinery and an insight into the problems associated with its operation without the student having to go to sea.
In 1985 artificer training moved to HMS Sultan in Gosport and "Caledonia" became a satellite unit of the fleet accommodation centre HMS Cochrane.
On the 1st April 1996 HMS Cochrane closed and HMS Caledonia once again became an establishment in its own right, assuming its present role for support of the Royal Navy at Rosyth as the Royal Navy Support Establishment.
