The PS Ripon was a paddlesteamer built at Money Wigram's Blackwall Yard in 1846 for P&O. The Ripon brought the first hippopotamus to the United Kingdom in 1850, and in 1854 was requisitioned for use in the Crimean War. In 1864 she brought Italian General Giuseppe Garibaldi to the United Kingdom for a meeting with Prime Minister Henry Palmerston. In 1870, the engines of the Ripon were sold, and the vessel was converted into a brig for Caird & Co in Greenock.