HMS Albion (1898)

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Career

Ordered:	1896 Programme
Builder:	Thames Ironworks and Shipbuilding Co. Ltd
Laid down:
Launched:	21 June 1898
Decommissioned:	1919
Status:	Sold for breaking up 11 December 1919
General Characteristics
Displacement:	12,950 tons
Length:	431 ft (131.4 m)
Beam:	74 ft (22.6 m)
Draught:	26 ft (7.9 m)
Propulsion:	2 shafts, water tube boilers, vertical triple expansion steam engines, 15,400 ihp
Speed:	18 kt
Complement:	750
Armament:	four 12 inch and twelve six-inch guns, 10-3 in guns, 4-18 in TT (sub)

HMS Albion was a British Canopus-class pre-Dreadnought battleship of approximately 14,000 tonnes, with a main armament of 4 × 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.

HMS 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.