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H.M.S. Dreadnought, a hospital ship, being towed from Greenwich to Chatham by tugs. Wood engraving by J. Greenaway, with letterpress and view of St Paul's Cathedral in title area, 1872. Wellcome Collection. Public Domain Mark. Source: Wellcome Collection.
The hulk of the Dreadnought replaced that of the Grampus in 1831. The hospital ship was entirely separate from the Greenwich hospital, catering for sick merchant mariners of any nation, under the care of the Seamen's Hospital Society. The Dreadnought was superseded in 1870, the Society moved to the infirmary of Greenwich Hospital, and the hulk was later broken up for salvage
"The Dreadnought Hospital-Ship.The removal of this vessel, familiarly known to all Greenwich steam-boat passengers, from the moorings she has held so long, was beheld with much interest by hundreds of the riverside people on Monday week. This hospital-ship and her predecessors have occupied a position off Deptford, almost immediately opposite the centre of the Isle of Dogs, more than half a century. When the Seamen's Hospital Society was formed, in 1821, its managing committee obtained the loan of the Grampus, a 50-gun frigate, which did duty as a hospital-ship for about nine years. In 1830 she was exchanged for the Dreadnought. But lastly, in 1856, her Majesty's ship Caledonia was lent to the Society and re-christened the Dreadnought, since the ship of that name had acquired a wide notoriety as the largest floating hospital. The ship just removed had three hospital-decks (one of which contained sixty-three beds), and was capable of accommodating 200 patients, besides a large resident staff, medical and other officers. She and her predecessors have received upwards of 120,000 sick seamen of all nations ; and the hospital possessed advantages for the study of some special diseases, such as could not be found in any of our metropolitan institutions. But on sanitary and administrative grounds it was considered unadvisable to perpetuate the existence of a permanent floating hospital; and the Society, having obtained the loan of a part of Greenwich Hospital from the Admiralty, removed its patients in the spring of 1870. Since that time the old ship has done good service as a smallpox hospital, undCer the supervision of the Metropolitan Asylum Board, who were thus able to clear their establishments at Stockwell, Homerton, and Hampstead while the epidemic was at its height, and to isolate their patients on board the ship during convalescence. The Board resigned her into the hands of the Admiralty some weeks ago, and as she is far too large and unwieldy a vessel to be useful as a receiving-ship for the port sanitary authorities, it was decided to remove her to Chatham. She has for many years obstructed the navigation very considerably. The old ship moved off slowly and steadily before high water, towed by the Admiralty tug Scotia, and closely nursed by two others. The river was somewhat crowded at the time, and she was for a minute or two in difficulties off Greenwich Hospital, but got clear of the surrounding small craft and glided round the point. On arriving at Chatham, she was placed in the repairing basin; but that basin must be emptied to recover one of the two great guns sunk there, and the Dreadnought is to be shifted into the factory basin."—Illustrated London news, loc. cit.
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