HMS Emerald was a corvette, of the Royal Navy, built at the Pembroke Dockyard and launched on 18 August 1876. She commenced service on the Australia Station in September 1878. She escorted Sir Hercules Robinson, the Governor of New Zealand from Sydney to Auckland in May 1879. Emerald was sent on a punitive mission in the Solomon Islands in 1879 after the captain and three crew of HMS Sandfly were killed by natives. She left the Australia Station in October 1881 and returned to England.