HMS Albion (1898)
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| Career (UK) |  |
|---|---|
| Name: | HMS Albion |
| Ordered: | 1896 Programme |
| Builder: | Thames Ironworks and Shipbuilding Co. Ltd |
| Laid down: | 3 December 1896 |
| Launched: | 21 June 1898 |
| Decommissioned: | 1919 |
| Fate: | Sold for breaking up 11 December 1919 |
| General characteristics | |
| Class and type: | Canopus class battleship |
| Displacement: | 12,950 tons |
| Length: | 431 ft (131 m) |
| Beam: | 74 ft (23 m) |
| Draught: | 26 ft (7.9 m) |
| Propulsion: | 2 shafts, water tube boilers, vertical triple expansion steam engines, 15,400 ihp |
| Speed: | 18.25 knots (33.80 km/h) |
| Complement: | 750 |
| Armament: | 4 × 12 in (305 mm) guns 12 × QF 6 in (152 mm) guns 10 × 3 in (76 mm) guns 4 × 18 in (457 mm) torpedo tubes (underwater) |
HMS Albion was a British Canopus-class pre-Dreadnought battleship of approximately 14,000 tonnes, with a main armament of four 12 inch (305 mm) guns and was built by the Thames Ironworks and Shipbuilding Co. Ltd. During her launch on June 21, 1898, 34 people were killed when a stage collapsed.
Albion commissioned in 1901 and served on the China Station until 1905. She spent the next few years in home waters, until the outbreak of the First World War in 1914, when she proceeded to join the Cape and East Africa Station. In 1915 she, along with others of the obsolete Canopus-class were in the Mediterranean, bombarding strategic Turkish positions in the Dardanelles. While doing so, two of her sister ships, HMS Goliath and HMS Ocean were sunk in the engagements, and Albion herself was badly damaged while supporting the Gallipoli landings.
On 24 May 1915 Albion became beached on a sandbank off Gaba Tepe and while stranded was struck over a hundred times by Turkish artillery. Fortunately the Turkish guns lacked penetration and Albion suffered fewer than a dozen casualties. She was only towed free after efforts were made to reduce weight and also by using the recoil of firing her main guns simultaneously.
Albion returned home after these damaging engagements in 1916, and was scrapped three years later.
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