The second HMS Somerset was an 80 gun ship of the line and was launched at Woolwich in 1731. Lord George Rodney, later to triumph at the Battle of the Saintes in 1782, served in HMS Somerset in 1739 while preparing for his Lieutenant’s exams. The ship saw action at the Battle of Toulon in 1744.

The third HMS Somerset was a British man-of-war involved in several notable battles of the Seven Years War and the American Revolutionary War. His Majesty's Ship Somerset was built at Chatham in 1748 but was destroyed when it ran aground in a storm in 1778.