Lord Nelson class battleship
Encyclopedia
The Lord Nelson class was a two-ship class of pre-dreadnought battleships built by the Royal Navy
between 1905 and 1908. Although they were the last British pre-dreadnoughts, both were completed and commissioned after HMS Dreadnought
had entered service. and were serving in the Channel Fleet
when World War I
began in 1914. They were both transferred to the Mediterranean Sea
in early 1915 to participate in the Dardanelles Campaign
. They remained there, assigned to the Eastern Mediterranean Squadron, which was later redesignated the Aegean Squadron to prevent the German battlecruiser
and her consort from breaking out into the Mediterranean. Both ships returned to the United Kingdom
in 1919. Lord Nelson was placed into reserve upon her arrival and sold for scrap in June 1920, but Agamemnon was converted into a radio-controlled target ship before being sold for scrap in 1927, the last surviving British pre-dreadnought.
s; on the other hand, the lower rate of fire of battleship main batteries raised questions about the prudence of building all-big-gun battleships, for fear that they might be overwhelmed by the higher rate of fire of intermediate-calibre guns in the shorter-range engagements that might occur in fog or bad weather or at night. In the end, the all-big-gun battleships, which became known as dreadnought
s after the first such ship, HMS Dreadnought
, were vindicated, but this was by no means clear when the Lord Nelsons were designed in 1904 or even by the time they were laid down in 1905.
_12-inch_gun_replacement_at_malta_1915.jpg)
The Lord Nelsons were the first battleships for which Sir Phillip Watts
was responsible. Although they followed the pre-dreadnought pattern established in the s in the early 1890s of having two twin main battery mounts, one fore and one aft, and mounted a main battery of four 12 inch (305 mm) guns, as had every pre-dreadnought since those of the in the mid-1890s, they otherwise were a major departure from previous British pre-dreadnought designs; they might have marked a new era in pre-dreadnought design had not the rise of the dreadnoughts snuffed out the pre-dreadnought era. In order to match increases in firepower seen in foreign battleships of similar displacement, the preceding s had introduced a 9.2-inch (234 mm) intermediate battery into British battleships in addition to the 6 inch (152 mm) secondary battery they long had mounted, but the Lord Nelsons carried this further by mounting an all-9.2-inch secondary battery; they were the first British battleships not to mount 6 inch guns since , which joined the fleet in 1881. (The and classes had joined the fleet with 4.7 inch (120 mm) secondaries but had later had them replaced by 6 inch guns.) Also, the 9.2-inch battery, made up of more powerful guns than on the King Edward VII-class ships, was mounted in turrets (four double and two single) on the upper deck, rather than on the main deck in a central battery or casemate
s; this eliminated the problem of being unable to work the secondaries in a seaway, a problem in the many classes of British battleships with main-deck-mounted secondaries which were washed out in all but the calmest weather.
The 12 inch guns were a new, more powerful, 45-calibre
type; they and their turrets were the same as those carried by the revolutionary Dreadnought; indeed, the completion of Lord Nelson and Agamemnon was delayed when their main battery guns and mountings were diverted to Dreadnought to expedite her completion in 1906.
In the end, the mixed-calibre heavy armament proved unsuccessful, as gunnery officers found it impossible to distinguish between 12-inch (305-mm) and 9.2-inch shell splashes, making fire control impractical. This finding further pushed the navies of the world to move to all-big-gun dreadnought battleship designs. Indeed, an all-big-gun design had been considered for the Lord Nelsons in January 1905, but their design was too far advanced by then to be changed, and the all-big-gun layout had to await HMS Dreadnought.
For anti-torpedo-boat defense, the Lord Nelsons retained a battery of 12-pounders. These were mounted on a large flying deck amidships, where they had good command. However, this innovative mounting scheme also was criticised because it made a good target and because falling debris due to damage might foul the 9.2-inch turrets below in combat. In addition, some officers believed that the all-12-pounder battery was too light to deal with larger, modern torpedo boat
s.
Larger gun calibres becoming common in foreign battleships, it was also recognised that greater protection was needed than had been thought to be the case in previous classes, and their main armour belt was twelve inches thick over the machinery spaces and magazines; the armour belt in the King Edward VII-class battleships, the immediately preceding class, was nowhere more than nine inches (229 mm) thick. The deletion of the casemate
armour required for the 6 inch guns formerly mounted allowed the main belt armour to be increased at very little cost in weight. They were more heavily armoured than any other British pre-dreadnoughts, and more heavily armored in terms of area and thickness than any of the dreadnoughts prior to the of 1909. They were the first British battleships to have solid watertight bulkhead
s, penetrated by no doors or pipes, intended to contain flooding, with access across the bulkheads being via lifts (elevator
s). The solid bulkheads proved unpopular in service because of the inconvenience they imposed on the crew and were not repeated in the early British dreadnoughts, although Russia
n experience in the Russo–Japanese War suggested that such bulkheads were useful in keeping pre-dreadnoughts from sinking. As further protection, each compartment in the Lord Nelsons had its own ventilation and pumping arrangements, eliminating the need for a single main drainage system as employed in previous British battleships and seen as a possible weakness during flooding.
_and_hms_agamemnon_(1906)_anchored_in_dardanelles_in_1915.jpg)
Both ships were designed to be short because the design board responsible for the ships wanted them to be able to fit into dry docks otherwise closed to previous battleship classes. The design requirements this imposed made them shorter than the earlier King Edward VII-class battleships and rather cramped in service, but the requirements also made the ships both flat-sided and fairly flat-bottomed; this and the mounting of the heavy 9.2 inch guns and their turrets had the useful side-effect of making the Lord Nelsons resistant to rolling and therefore both good seaboats and good gun platforms. However, the design also forced a compromises in the 9.2-inch battery. The ships' beam limitations forced abandonment of a design in which each of them would mount twelve 9.2 inch guns in six twin turrets, and instead they mounted ten of the guns in four twin and two single turrets, and limitations on the size of the 9.2-inch turrets themselves meant that they were cramped enough in service to impair the rate of fire of their guns.
They were the last British battleships to have reciprocating engines and the last with twin propellers, future classes having turbine
s and four propellers. They also were the last with inward-turning screws, which allowed greater propulsive force and slightly higher speeds and slightly less fuel consumption, but were unpopular in service because they made ships less manoeuvrable at low speeds or when going astern. It was decided to stop using mixed boiler types in the same ship, and both had 15 uniform, large water-tube boiler
s, Babcock and Wilcox
in Lord Nelson and Yarrow
in Agamemnon. Although primarily coal-powered, they were the first British battleships designed to carry oil, earlier ships having been retrofitted to carry oil; Lord Nelson had six oil spayers and Agamemnon five, and the use of these extended their range considerably. The boiler arrangements were very successful in service, and both ships easily made their design speed of 18 knots (33.33 km/h); on trials Lord Nelson made 18.7 knots (34.6 km/h) and Agamemnon made 18.5 knots (34.25 km/h).
_9.2-inch_gun_firing_on_sedd_el_bahr_4_march_1915.jpg)
The Lord Nelsons were the last British battleships to have an armoured ram
built into their bow
. They cost just over £1,600,000 each, the 2005 equivalent of about £110,000,000. The ships as completed were homely but intimidating in appearance, and looked more like French
battleships than the previous British pre-dreadnought pattern.
_and_hms_agamemnon_(1906)_on_patrol_in_dardanelles_1915.jpg)
Both ships commissioned in 1908 and served in the Home Fleet until World War I
broke out in August 1914. After early wartime service in the Channel Fleet
, both spent the rest of the war in the Mediterranean
, where they were involved in attacks on Turkish forts and support of landings in the Dardanelles Campaign
and later blockaded the German
battlecruiser
Goeben
off the Dardanelles
, although both were out of position and missed her when she sortied in January 1918. In November 1918 both ships were part of the first British squadron to pass through the Dardanelles after the Armistice. Agamemnon was employed as a radio-controlled target ship during the 1920s.
was laid down by Palmers Shipbuilding and Iron Company
at Jarrow
in 1905, launched in 1906, and completed in 1908. She commissioned in reserve in 1908, the last British pre-dreadnought
to join the fleet, then served in the Home Fleet (1909–1914). Her World War I
service was in the Channel Fleet
(1914–1915), Dardanelles Campaign
(1915–1916), Eastern Mediterranean Squadron (1916–1917), and Aegean Squadron (1917–1919). She went into reserve in 1919 and was sold for scrapping in 1920.
at Dalmuir
in 1905, launched in 1906, and completed in 1908. She served in the Home Fleet (1908–1914). Her World War I
service was in the Channel Fleet (1914–1915), Dardanelles Campaign (1915–1916), Eastern Mediterranean Squadron (1916–1917), and Aegean Squadron (1917–1919). She went into reserve in 1919, then served as a radio-controlled target ship (1921–1926). The last surviving British pre-dreadnought
, she was sold for scrapping in 1927.
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...
between 1905 and 1908. Although they were the last British pre-dreadnoughts, both were completed and commissioned after HMS Dreadnought
HMS Dreadnought (1906)
HMS Dreadnought was a battleship of the British Royal Navy that revolutionised naval power. Her entry into service in 1906 represented such a marked advance in naval technology that her name came to be associated with an entire generation of battleships, the "dreadnoughts", as well as the class of...
had entered service. and were serving in the Channel Fleet
Channel Fleet
The Channel Fleet was the Royal Navy formation of warships that defended the waters of the English Channel from 1690 to 1909.-History:The Channel Fleet dates back at least to 1690 when its role was to defend England against the French threat under the leadership of Edward Russell, 1st Earl of...
when World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
began in 1914. They were both transferred to the Mediterranean Sea
Mediterranean Sea
The Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean surrounded by the Mediterranean region and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Anatolia and Europe, on the south by North Africa, and on the east by the Levant...
in early 1915 to participate in the Dardanelles Campaign
Naval operations in the Dardanelles Campaign
The naval operations in the Dardanelles Campaign of the First World War were mainly carried out by the Royal Navy with substantial support from the French and minor contributions from Russia and Australia. The Dardanelles Campaign began as a purely naval operation...
. They remained there, assigned to the Eastern Mediterranean Squadron, which was later redesignated the Aegean Squadron to prevent 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 her consort from breaking out into the Mediterranean. Both ships returned to the United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
in 1919. Lord Nelson was placed into reserve upon her arrival and sold for scrap in June 1920, but Agamemnon was converted into a radio-controlled target ship before being sold for scrap in 1927, the last surviving British pre-dreadnought.
Technical characteristics
The Lord Nelson-class battleships were designed and built at a time when the direction of future battleship construction was controversial. On the one hand, naval combat during the Russo–Japanese War of 1904–1905 suggested that engagement ranges would increase to the point that intermediate and secondary batteries would become far less important and perhaps even ineffective, and that smaller-calibre guns would be useless in combat between capital shipCapital ship
The capital ships of a navy are its most important warships; they generally possess the heaviest firepower and armor and are traditionally much larger than other naval vessels...
s; on the other hand, the lower rate of fire of battleship main batteries raised questions about the prudence of building all-big-gun battleships, for fear that they might be overwhelmed by the higher rate of fire of intermediate-calibre guns in the shorter-range engagements that might occur in fog or bad weather or at night. In the end, the all-big-gun battleships, which became known as dreadnought
Dreadnought
The dreadnought was the predominant type of 20th-century battleship. The first of the kind, the Royal Navy's had such an impact when launched in 1906 that similar battleships built after her were referred to as "dreadnoughts", and earlier battleships became known as pre-dreadnoughts...
s after the first such ship, HMS Dreadnought
HMS Dreadnought (1906)
HMS Dreadnought was a battleship of the British Royal Navy that revolutionised naval power. Her entry into service in 1906 represented such a marked advance in naval technology that her name came to be associated with an entire generation of battleships, the "dreadnoughts", as well as the class of...
, were vindicated, but this was by no means clear when the Lord Nelsons were designed in 1904 or even by the time they were laid down in 1905.
Philip Watts (naval architect)
Sir Philip Watts, KCB FRS was a British naval architect, famous for his design of the revolutionary Elswick cruiser and the HMS Dreadnought.-Early life:...
was responsible. Although they followed the pre-dreadnought pattern established in the s in the early 1890s of having two twin main battery mounts, one fore and one aft, and mounted a main battery of four 12 inch (305 mm) guns, as had every pre-dreadnought since those of the in the mid-1890s, they otherwise were a major departure from previous British pre-dreadnought designs; they might have marked a new era in pre-dreadnought design had not the rise of the dreadnoughts snuffed out the pre-dreadnought era. In order to match increases in firepower seen in foreign battleships of similar displacement, the preceding s had introduced a 9.2-inch (234 mm) intermediate battery into British battleships in addition to the 6 inch (152 mm) secondary battery they long had mounted, but the Lord Nelsons carried this further by mounting an all-9.2-inch secondary battery; they were the first British battleships not to mount 6 inch guns since , which joined the fleet in 1881. (The and classes had joined the fleet with 4.7 inch (120 mm) secondaries but had later had them replaced by 6 inch guns.) Also, the 9.2-inch battery, made up of more powerful guns than on the King Edward VII-class ships, was mounted in turrets (four double and two single) on the upper deck, rather than on the main deck in a central battery or casemate
Casemate
A casemate, sometimes rendered casement, is a fortified gun emplacement or armored structure from which guns are fired. originally a vaulted chamber in a fortress.-Origin of the term:...
s; this eliminated the problem of being unable to work the secondaries in a seaway, a problem in the many classes of British battleships with main-deck-mounted secondaries which were washed out in all but the calmest weather.
The 12 inch guns were a new, more powerful, 45-calibre
Caliber (artillery)
In artillery, caliber or calibredifference in British English and American English spelling is the internal diameter of a gun barrel, or by extension a relative measure of the length....
type; they and their turrets were the same as those carried by the revolutionary Dreadnought; indeed, the completion of Lord Nelson and Agamemnon was delayed when their main battery guns and mountings were diverted to Dreadnought to expedite her completion in 1906.
In the end, the mixed-calibre heavy armament proved unsuccessful, as gunnery officers found it impossible to distinguish between 12-inch (305-mm) and 9.2-inch shell splashes, making fire control impractical. This finding further pushed the navies of the world to move to all-big-gun dreadnought battleship designs. Indeed, an all-big-gun design had been considered for the Lord Nelsons in January 1905, but their design was too far advanced by then to be changed, and the all-big-gun layout had to await HMS Dreadnought.
For anti-torpedo-boat defense, the Lord Nelsons retained a battery of 12-pounders. These were mounted on a large flying deck amidships, where they had good command. However, this innovative mounting scheme also was criticised because it made a good target and because falling debris due to damage might foul the 9.2-inch turrets below in combat. In addition, some officers believed that the all-12-pounder battery was too light to deal with larger, modern torpedo boat
Torpedo boat
A torpedo boat is a relatively small and fast naval vessel designed to carry torpedoes into battle. The first designs rammed enemy ships with explosive spar torpedoes, and later designs launched self-propelled Whitehead torpedoes. They were created to counter battleships and other large, slow and...
s.
Larger gun calibres becoming common in foreign battleships, it was also recognised that greater protection was needed than had been thought to be the case in previous classes, and their main armour belt was twelve inches thick over the machinery spaces and magazines; the armour belt in the King Edward VII-class battleships, the immediately preceding class, was nowhere more than nine inches (229 mm) thick. The deletion of the casemate
Casemate
A casemate, sometimes rendered casement, is a fortified gun emplacement or armored structure from which guns are fired. originally a vaulted chamber in a fortress.-Origin of the term:...
armour required for the 6 inch guns formerly mounted allowed the main belt armour to be increased at very little cost in weight. They were more heavily armoured than any other British pre-dreadnoughts, and more heavily armored in terms of area and thickness than any of the dreadnoughts prior to the of 1909. They were the first British battleships to have solid watertight bulkhead
Bulkhead (partition)
A bulkhead is an upright wall within the hull of a ship or within the fuselage of an airplane. Other kinds of partition elements within a ship are decks and deckheads.-Etymology:...
s, penetrated by no doors or pipes, intended to contain flooding, with access across the bulkheads being via lifts (elevator
Elevator
An elevator is a type of vertical transport equipment that efficiently moves people or goods between floors of a building, vessel or other structures...
s). The solid bulkheads proved unpopular in service because of the inconvenience they imposed on the crew and were not repeated in the early British dreadnoughts, although Russia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
n experience in the Russo–Japanese War suggested that such bulkheads were useful in keeping pre-dreadnoughts from sinking. As further protection, each compartment in the Lord Nelsons had its own ventilation and pumping arrangements, eliminating the need for a single main drainage system as employed in previous British battleships and seen as a possible weakness during flooding.
They were the last British battleships to have reciprocating engines and the last with twin propellers, future classes having turbine
Turbine
A turbine is a rotary engine that extracts energy from a fluid flow and converts it into useful work.The simplest turbines have one moving part, a rotor assembly, which is a shaft or drum with blades attached. Moving fluid acts on the blades, or the blades react to the flow, so that they move and...
s and four propellers. They also were the last with inward-turning screws, which allowed greater propulsive force and slightly higher speeds and slightly less fuel consumption, but were unpopular in service because they made ships less manoeuvrable at low speeds or when going astern. It was decided to stop using mixed boiler types in the same ship, and both had 15 uniform, large water-tube boiler
Water-tube boiler
A water tube boiler is a type of boiler in which water circulates in tubes heated externally by the fire. Fuel is burned inside the furnace, creating hot gas which heats water in the steam-generating tubes...
s, Babcock and Wilcox
Babcock and Wilcox
The Babcock & Wilcox Company is a U.S.-based company that provides design, engineering, manufacturing, construction and facilities management services to nuclear, renewable, fossil power, industrial and government customers worldwide. B&W's boilers supply more than 300,000 megawatts of installed...
in Lord Nelson and Yarrow
Yarrow
Achillea millefolium or yarrow is a flowering plant in the family Asteraceae, native to the Northern Hemisphere. In New Mexico and southern Colorado, it is called plumajillo, or "little feather", for the shape of the leaves. In antiquity, yarrow was known as herbal militaris, for its use in...
in Agamemnon. Although primarily coal-powered, they were the first British battleships designed to carry oil, earlier ships having been retrofitted to carry oil; Lord Nelson had six oil spayers and Agamemnon five, and the use of these extended their range considerably. The boiler arrangements were very successful in service, and both ships easily made their design speed of 18 knots (33.33 km/h); on trials Lord Nelson made 18.7 knots (34.6 km/h) and Agamemnon made 18.5 knots (34.25 km/h).
Naval ram
A naval ram was a weapon carried by varied types of ships, dating back to antiquity. The weapon consisted of an underwater prolongation of the bow of the ship to form an armoured beak, usually between six and twelve feet in length...
built into their bow
Bow (ship)
The bow is a nautical term that refers to the forward part of the hull of a ship or boat, the point that is most forward when the vessel is underway. Both of the adjectives fore and forward mean towards the bow...
. They cost just over £1,600,000 each, the 2005 equivalent of about £110,000,000. The ships as completed were homely but intimidating in appearance, and looked more like French
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
battleships than the previous British pre-dreadnought pattern.
Operational history
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
broke out in August 1914. After early wartime service in the Channel Fleet
Channel Fleet
The Channel Fleet was the Royal Navy formation of warships that defended the waters of the English Channel from 1690 to 1909.-History:The Channel Fleet dates back at least to 1690 when its role was to defend England against the French threat under the leadership of Edward Russell, 1st Earl of...
, both spent the rest of the war in the Mediterranean
Mediterranean Sea
The Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean surrounded by the Mediterranean region and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Anatolia and Europe, on the south by North Africa, and on the east by the Levant...
, where they were involved in attacks on Turkish forts and support of landings in the Dardanelles Campaign
Naval operations in the Dardanelles Campaign
The naval operations in the Dardanelles Campaign of the First World War were mainly carried out by the Royal Navy with substantial support from the French and minor contributions from Russia and Australia. The Dardanelles Campaign began as a purely naval operation...
and later blockaded the 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...
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...
Goeben
SMS Goeben
SMS Goeben was the second of two Moltke-class battlecruisers of the Imperial German Navy, launched in 1911 and named after the German Franco-Prussian War veteran General August Karl von Goeben...
off the Dardanelles
Dardanelles
The Dardanelles , formerly known as the Hellespont, is a narrow strait in northwestern Turkey connecting the Aegean Sea to the Sea of Marmara. It is one of the Turkish Straits, along with its counterpart the Bosphorus. It is located at approximately...
, although both were out of position and missed her when she sortied in January 1918. In November 1918 both ships were part of the first British squadron to pass through the Dardanelles after the Armistice. Agamemnon was employed as a radio-controlled target ship during the 1920s.
HMS Lord Nelson
HMS Lord NelsonHMS Lord Nelson (1906)
HMS Lord Nelson was a predreadnought battleship launched in 1906 and completed in 1908. She was the Royal Navy's last predreadnought. The ship was flagship of the Channel Fleet when World War I began in 1914. Lord Nelson was transferred to the Mediterranean Sea in early 1915 to participate in the...
was laid down by Palmers Shipbuilding and Iron Company
Palmers Shipbuilding and Iron Company
Palmers Shipbuilding and Iron Company Limited, often referred to simply as Palmers, was a British shipbuilding company. The Company was based in Jarrow, in Northeast England and also had operations in Hebburn and Willington Quay on the River Tyne....
at Jarrow
Jarrow
Jarrow is a town in Tyne and Wear, England, located on the River Tyne, with a population of 27,526. From the middle of the 19th century until 1935, Jarrow was a centre for shipbuilding, and was the starting point of the Jarrow March against unemployment in 1936.-Foundation:The Angles re-occupied...
in 1905, launched in 1906, and completed in 1908. She commissioned in reserve in 1908, the last British pre-dreadnought
Pre-dreadnought
Pre-dreadnought battleship is the general term for all of the types of sea-going battleships built between the mid-1890s and 1905. Pre-dreadnoughts replaced the ironclad warships of the 1870s and 1880s...
to join the fleet, then served in the Home Fleet (1909–1914). Her World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
service was in the Channel Fleet
Channel Fleet
The Channel Fleet was the Royal Navy formation of warships that defended the waters of the English Channel from 1690 to 1909.-History:The Channel Fleet dates back at least to 1690 when its role was to defend England against the French threat under the leadership of Edward Russell, 1st Earl of...
(1914–1915), Dardanelles Campaign
Naval operations in the Dardanelles Campaign
The naval operations in the Dardanelles Campaign of the First World War were mainly carried out by the Royal Navy with substantial support from the French and minor contributions from Russia and Australia. The Dardanelles Campaign began as a purely naval operation...
(1915–1916), Eastern Mediterranean Squadron (1916–1917), and Aegean Squadron (1917–1919). She went into reserve in 1919 and was sold for scrapping in 1920.
HMS Agamemnon
was laid down by William Beardmore and CompanyWilliam 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...
at Dalmuir
Dalmuir
Dalmuir is an area on the western side of Clydebank, in West Dunbartonshire, Scotland.-Location:It is neighboured by the village of Old Kilpatrick, the Mountblow and Parkhall areas of Clydebank, as well as the town centre...
in 1905, launched in 1906, and completed in 1908. She served in the Home Fleet (1908–1914). Her World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
service was in the Channel Fleet (1914–1915), Dardanelles Campaign (1915–1916), Eastern Mediterranean Squadron (1916–1917), and Aegean Squadron (1917–1919). She went into reserve in 1919, then served as a radio-controlled target ship (1921–1926). The last surviving British pre-dreadnought
Pre-dreadnought
Pre-dreadnought battleship is the general term for all of the types of sea-going battleships built between the mid-1890s and 1905. Pre-dreadnoughts replaced the ironclad warships of the 1870s and 1880s...
, she was sold for scrapping in 1927.