HMS Druid (1825)

Druid, the fourth ship of her name to serve in the Royal Navy,^[4] was ordered on 23 July 1817, laid down in August 1821 at Pembroke Dockyard, Wales, and launched on 1 July 1825.^[3] She was commissioned that same month and completed at Plymouth Dockyard on 21 December 1825.^[2]

On 6 January 1831 Druid was at Rio de Janeiro. There she took on the mail for England that the Post Office Packet Service packet HMS Zephyr (1823) had brought from Buenos Aires and Montevideo. Zephyr had come with the mails from Buenos Aires and Montevideo and would be delayed at Rio for some days while repairing a broken mast.

On 25 August 1839 Druid sailed from England to Sydney with Captain Hobson RN, who was tasked with negotiating an agreement with the natives of New Zealand about its settlement by English settlers. It arrived at Sydney on 24 December 1839.^[5] The Druid then sailed for China on 23 or 24 January 1840.^[6]

Druid saw active service in the First Opium War. In early June 1840, its commander Lord Henry John Spencer-Churchill, youngest son of the Duke of Marlborough, died on board off the coast of Macao. The cause of death was recorded as "congestion of the brain" complicated by dysentery.

• Colledge, J. J.; Warlow, Ben (2006) [1969]. Ships of the Royal Navy: The Complete Record of All Fighting Ships of the Royal Navy from the 15th Century to the Present (3rd Rev ed.). London: Chatham Publishing. ISBN 978-1-86176-281-8. OCLC 67375475.
• Phillips, Lawrie (2014). Pembroke Dockyard and the Old Navy: A Bicentennial History. Stroud, Gloucestershire, UK: The History Press. ISBN 978-0-7509-5214-9.
• Winfield, Rif (2014). British Warships in the Age of Sail, 1817-1863 (epub). Barnsley, UK: Seaforth. ISBN 978-1-47383-743-0.
• Lyon, David & Winfield, Rif (2004). The Sail and Steam Navy List: All the Ships of the Royal Navy 1815–1889. Chatham Publishing. ISBN 978-1-86176-032-6. OCLC 52620555.