- published: 28 Jul 2014
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The ship Svyataya Anna (Russian: Святая Анна), named after Saint Anne, was the Philomel-class gunvessel HMS Newport launched in England in 1867. She was sold in 1881 and renamed Pandora II. She was purchased again in about 1890 and renamed Blencathra, taking part in expeditions to the north coast of Russia. She was bought in 1912 by Georgy Brusilov for use in his ill-fated 1912 Arctic expedition to explore the Northern Sea Route. The ship became firmly trapped in ice; only two members of the expedition, Valerian Albanov and Alexander Konrad, survived. The ship has never been found.
The Philomel-class gunvessels were an enlargement of the earlier Algerine-class gunboat of 1856. The first six of the class were ordered by the Admiralty from the naval dockyards between April 1857 and April 1859. Another twelve were ordered on 14 June 1859 to be constructed by contract in private yards, receiving their names on 24 September the same year; these were then fitted out at naval dockyards. The last eight of the class, of which Newport was the first, were ordered on 5 March 1860 for construction in naval dockyards, although six of them were later cancelled.