HMS ''Pelorus'' was the first of the s, and was laid down at

Sheerness Sheerness () is a port town and civil parish beside the mouth of the River Medway on the north-west corner of the Isle of Sheppey in north Kent, England. With a population of 13,249, it is the second largest town on the island after the nearby ...

dockyard in 1895. Completed and commissioned into the

Royal Navy The Royal Navy (RN) is the naval warfare force of the United Kingdom. It is a component of His Majesty's Naval Service, and its officers hold their commissions from the King of the United Kingdom, King. Although warships were used by Kingdom ...

in 1897, she was designed by Sir William White. Construction cost £154,315. The ship was well armed for her size, but was primarily a workhorse for the overseas fleet. HMS ''Pelorus'' displaced 2,135 tons and had a top speed of . She had reciprocating triple expansion engines and Normand water-tube boilers which could give for limited periods of time with forced draught, and under natural draught. It carried a crew complement of 224 men and it was armed with eight QF 4 inch (102 mm) (25 pounder) guns, eight QF 3 pounder (47-mm) guns, three machine guns, and two 18-inch (450-mm)

torpedo tube A torpedo tube is a cylindrical device for launching torpedoes. There are two main types of torpedo tube: underwater tubes fitted to submarines and some surface ships, and deck-mounted units (also referred to as torpedo launchers) installed aboa ...

Service history

''Pelorus'' served in the

Channel Fleet The Channel Fleet and originally known as the Channel Squadron was the Royal Navy formation of warships that defended the waters of the English Channel from 1854 to 1909 and 1914 to 1915. History Throughout the course of Royal Navy's history th ...

under Captain Henry Charles Bertram Hulbert, when in February 1900 she joined the Eastern division of the fleet. In 1901, the ship was stationed at

Gibraltar Gibraltar ( , ) is a British Overseas Territories, British Overseas Territory and British overseas cities, city located at the southern tip of the Iberian Peninsula, on the Bay of Gibraltar, near the exit of the Mediterranean Sea into the A ...

under the command of Commander

Ernest Troubridge Admiral (Royal Navy), Admiral Sir Ernest Charles Thomas Troubridge, (15 July 1862 – 28 January 1926) was an officer of the Royal Navy who served during the First World War. Troubridge was born into a family with substantial military connecti ...

. The following year she paid off at Devonport, had her boilers repaired, and in August was towed to Clydebank to be refitted by Messrs J. Brown and Co. in

Glasgow Glasgow is the Cities of Scotland, most populous city in Scotland, located on the banks of the River Clyde in Strathclyde, west central Scotland. It is the List of cities in the United Kingdom, third-most-populous city in the United Kingdom ...

. In 1906, the ship was assigned to the

Cape of Good Hope Station The Commander-in-Chief, Africa was the last title of a Royal Navy's formation commander located in South Africa from 1795 to 1939. Under varying titles, it was one of the longest-lived formations of the Royal Navy. It was also often known as the C ...

under the command of Commander James C. Tancred. In 1908 the captain was Arthur W Craig.

References

*E E Highams, 'Across a Continent in a Man of War' (Westminster Press, London, 1909)

External links

Pelorus-class cruisers of the Royal Navy Ships built in Sheerness 1896 ships World War I cruisers of the United Kingdom {{UK-mil-ship-stub