HMS Shannon was a ship of the Minotaur-class

Minotaur class cruiser (1906)

The Minotaur class was a three-ship class of armoured cruiser built around 1906 for the Royal Navy. They served during World War I, with all three being present at the Battle of Jutland, where HMS Defence was sunk. The surviving ships were scrapped postwar.-History:The Minotaur class was the last...

 of armoured cruiser 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...

.

Career

She was built at Chatham

Chatham Dockyard

Chatham Dockyard, located on the River Medway and of which two-thirds is in Gillingham and one third in Chatham, Kent, England, came into existence at the time when, following the Reformation, relations with the Catholic countries of Europe had worsened, leading to a requirement for additional...

 and launched

Ship naming and launching

The ceremonies involved in naming and launching naval ships are based in traditions thousands of years old.-Methods of launch:There are three principal methods of conveying a new ship from building site to water, only two of which are called "launching." The oldest, most familiar, and most widely...

 on 20 September 1906. She served in the First World War with her sisters and fought at 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...

, where she was captained by John S. Dumaresq

John Saumarez Dumaresq

Rear Admiral John Saumarez Dumaresq CB, CVO was an officer in the Royal Navy. He served during World War I but is most remembered as an inventor, for development of the device named after him, the Dumaresq, which helped users calculate the rate at which the range to an enemy ship was changing...

. Unlike her sister

Sister ship

A sister ship is a ship of the same class as, or of virtually identical design to, another ship. Such vessels share a near-identical hull and superstructure layout, similar displacement, and roughly comparable features and equipment...

, Defence

HMS Defence (1907)

HMS Defence was a armoured cruiser built for the Royal Navy in the mid-1900s. She was the last armoured cruiser built for the Royal Navy. She was stationed in the Mediterranean when the First World War began and participated in the pursuit of the German battlecruiser and light cruiser...

, she survived the battle, and the war, to be sold for breaking up on 12 December 1922.