HMS Galatea was an Arethusa-class light cruiser

Light cruiser

A light cruiser is a type of small- or medium-sized warship. The term is a shortening of the phrase "light armored cruiser", describing a small ship that carried armor in the same way as an armored cruiser: a protective belt and deck...

 of the Royal Navy

Royal Navy

The Royal Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Founded in the 16th century, it is the oldest service branch and is known as the Senior Service...

 launched on 14 May, 1914 at William Beardmore and Company

William Beardmore and Company

William Beardmore and Company was a Scottish engineering and shipbuilding conglomerate based in Glasgow and the surrounding Clydeside area. It was active between about 1890 and 1930 and at its peak employed about 40,000 people...

 shipyard.

On her commissioning she was assigned as the leader to the 2nd Destroyer Squadron of the Harwich

Harwich

Harwich is a town in Essex, England and one of the Haven ports, located on the coast with the North Sea to the east. It is in the Tendring district. Nearby places include Felixstowe to the northeast, Ipswich to the northwest, Colchester to the southwest and Clacton-on-Sea to the south...

 Force, guarding the eastern approaches to the English Channel

English Channel

The English Channel , often referred to simply as the Channel, is an arm of the Atlantic Ocean that separates southern England from northern France, and joins the North Sea to the Atlantic. It is about long and varies in width from at its widest to in the Strait of Dover...

. On the 4 May 1916, she took part in the shooting down of Zeppelin

Zeppelin

A Zeppelin is a type of rigid airship pioneered by the German Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin in the early 20th century. It was based on designs he had outlined in 1874 and detailed in 1893. His plans were reviewed by committee in 1894 and patented in the United States on 14 March 1899...

 L 7. At the battle of Jutland

Battle of Jutland

The Battle of Jutland was a naval battle between the British Royal Navy's Grand Fleet and the Imperial German Navy's High Seas Fleet during the First World War. The battle was fought on 31 May and 1 June 1916 in the North Sea near Jutland, Denmark. It was the largest naval battle and the only...

, she was the flagship of the First Light Cruiser Squadron under Commodore E.S. Alexander-Sinclair

Edwyn Alexander-Sinclair

Admiral Sir Edwyn Sinclair Alexander-Sinclair, GCB, MVO was a British Royal Navy officer, notable for firing the first shots of the Battle of Jutland, and for leading a squadron of light cruisers in the Baltic to support independence of Estonia and Latvia in 1918-19.-Naval career:Born in Malta and...

. She was the first ship to report the presence of German

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

 ships, triggering the battle. The Galatea was also the first to receive a hit by the German light cruiser SMS Elbing

SMS Elbing

The SMS Elbing was a German Pillau class light cruiser, named after the East Prussian city of Elbing. Intended for the Russian navy under the name Admiral Newelski , the ship was built at F. Schichau-Werft in Danzig in 1913-1914...

, but no explosion occurred.

Galatea was part of the screen around the Battle Cruiser Force under Admiral Beatty

David Beatty, 1st Earl Beatty

Admiral of the Fleet David Richard Beatty, 1st Earl Beatty, GCB, OM, GCVO, DSO was an admiral in the Royal Navy...

 which was on a sweep across the North Sea

North Sea

In the southwest, beyond the Straits of Dover, the North Sea becomes the English Channel connecting to the Atlantic Ocean. In the east, it connects to the Baltic Sea via the Skagerrak and Kattegat, narrow straits that separate Denmark from Norway and Sweden respectively...

 on 31 May 1916. She was sent in company with her sister HMS Phaeton

HMS Phaeton (1914)

HMS Phaeton was an Arethusa-class light cruiser of the Royal Navy launched on 21 October 1914 at Vickers Limited shipyard.On being commissioned, she was assigned to the 4th Light Cruiser Squadron of the Grand Fleet, and between February and March 1915 was operating in the Dardanelles in support of...

 to investigate a stopped merchant vessel, the Danish

Denmark

Denmark is a Scandinavian country in Northern Europe. The countries of Denmark and Greenland, as well as the Faroe Islands, constitute the Kingdom of Denmark . It is the southernmost of the Nordic countries, southwest of Sweden and south of Norway, and bordered to the south by Germany. Denmark...

 N J Fiord. At the same time, two destroyers, B-109 and B-110 from the German battlecruiser

Battlecruiser

Battlecruisers were large capital ships built in the first half of the 20th century. They were developed in the first decade of the century as the successor to the armoured cruiser, but their evolution was more closely linked to that of the dreadnought battleship...

 and cruiser

Cruiser

A cruiser is a type of warship. The term has been in use for several hundreds of years, and has had different meanings throughout this period...

 Scouting Groups under Admiral Franz von Hipper

Franz von Hipper

Franz Ritter von Hipper was an admiral in the German Imperial Navy . Franz von Hipper joined the German Navy in 1881 as an officer cadet. He commanded several torpedo boat units and served as watch officer aboard several warships, as well as Kaiser Wilhelm II's yacht Hohenzollern...

, were sent to investigate the ship. The two fleets were previously unaware that they were less than 50 miles (80 km) apart.

She was sold for scrapping on 25 October 1921. Mount Galatea

Mount Galatea

Mount Galatea is the highest peak of the Kananaskis Range, a subrange of the Canadian Rockies in the province of Alberta. It is located in the upper Spray Lakes Valley of the Kananaskis Country system of provincial parks...

 in Alberta

Alberta

Alberta is a province of Canada. It had an estimated population of 3.7 million in 2010 making it the most populous of Canada's three prairie provinces...

, Canada

Canada

Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

is named after this ship.