MARGUERITE
Shipbuildervessel built by
Hall, Russell & Company, Limited
(Aberdeen, Scotland, 1864 - 1992)
Owner
Royal Navy
Date8 July 1940
Object NameCORVETTE
ClassificationsShip
Dimensionslength 190 3/6' x breadth 33 1/12' x depth 17 7/12'
Object numberABDSHIP002455
Keywords
Yard Number: 754
Subsequent Name: WEATHER OBSERVER (1947)
Fate: scrapped at Ghent, Belgium, on 8 September 1961.
Propulsion: Steam
Description: Flower Class corvette, design armament 1 x BL 4 inch Mk IX gun, 2 x .50 inch twin machine guns, 2 x .303 inch Lewis machine guns, 2 x stern depth charge racks with 40 depth charges
Owners:
1940: Royal Navy, pennant no. K54.
1947: Air Ministry
General History:
30/12/1939: Laid down
20/11/1940: commissioned.
Second World War service as coastal defence and convoy escort duties.
After the Second World War she was transferred to the Air Ministry, renamed WEATHER OBSERVER 'Weather Observer', and fitted out as a floating meteorological observatory in 1947. She was one of four such ships operated by the Air Ministry in the North Atlantic. Every six hours the crew would launch hydrogen balloons to record the temperature, humidity and pressure at 50,000 feet in order to help forecast the unpredictable British weather. The ship was scrapped at Ghent, Belgium, on 8 September 1961.
[details from National Maritime Museum, Greenwich. NMM also have a model of MARGUERITE as a weather ship in their collections]
Five Flower Class corvettes were built by Hall, Russell's; CORIANDER, MARGUERITE, MIGNONETTE, MARIGOLD and LOOSESTRIFE. Of these, only MARIGOLD did not survive the war as she was sunk by Italian aircraft off Algiers in 1942.
April 1827
