HC Deb 23 June 1879 vol 247 cc428-9
CAPTAIN PIM

asked the First Lord of the Admiralty, Whether it is true, as stated in the " Daily Telegraph," that Her Majesty's Arctic ship " Re-solute " is to be broken up; and, whether the Admiralty would be prepared to consider an application to transfer the ship to a committee for the purpose of mooring her off the Temple Pier and turning her into a training ship for metropolitan boys?

MR. W. H. SMITH

Sir, the Resolute has been ordered to be taken to pieces, and any sound timber that may be found in her will be used for conversion into a piece of furniture to be presented to the President of the United States, as it was by his order that the ship was restored to this country after having been lost in the Arctic Seas. She was a merchant vessel, bought into our Navy for Arctic research. She is now rotten and decayed, and would require a large expenditure to keep her afloat; but, from the condition of her timbers, and her small size—420 tons—she would be quite unsuited for a training ship.