HMS Nottingham
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Six ships of the British Royal Navy have borne the name HMS Nottingham, after the city of Nottingham in the East Midlands, or alternatively after Lord High Admiral Charles Howard, 1st Earl of Nottingham, who commanded the English fleet against the Armada in 1588.
The First HMS Nottingham (1703-16) was a fourth rate cruiser of 924 tons, 365 men and 60 guns. Commissioned under Captain Samuel Whitaker, she formed part of Shovell's fleet that sailed with Admiral Rooke to attack and take the formidable Rock of Gibraltar in 1704. The ship also saw action in the Battle of Marbella in March 1705 and in the Mediterranean in 1711.
The Second HMS Nottingham (1719-39) was a rebuild of the first. Slightly larger, she was commissioned on 5 October 1719 under Captain Richard Hughes and later formed part of Norris's fleet in the Baltic. Having never seen action she was rebuilt at Sheerness in 1745 as the Third HMS Nottingham (1745-73). Now 1077 tons, she gained 6 battle honours and was probably the most notable of all ships to bear the name. The Fourth HMS Nottingham (1796-99) was a 67-ton river barge. Commissioned by the Navy in September 1796, she had been converted into a gunboat by the addition of 2 eighteen pounders and a thirty-two pound carronade. However, this ship never fired a shot in anger.
114 years passed before the Royal Navy commissioned the Fifth HMS Nottingham (1914-16). A light `Town Class' cruiser of 5,440 tons, 430 feet in length and a complement of 401 men, she had 2 inch thick armour plating and was armed with 9 six-inch guns, one thirteen-pound anti-aircraft gun and 2 twenty-one inch torpedo tubes. Seeing action for the first time off Heligoland in August 1914 as one of 8 British light cruisers supported by destroyers and submarines, she entered the Heligoland Bight to intercept German vessels employed on coastal protection duties.
The ship then saw action in the Yorkshire Raid on 16 December and shortly after that at the Battle of Dogger Bank on 23 January 1915. On the 31 May came the Battle of Jutland, where Nottingham was attached to the Second Light Cruiser Squadron. Two and a half months later on 19 August 1916 she was engaged in a sweep of the North Sea in thick mist 120 miles south-east of the Firth of Forth when, at 0600, she was hit by two torpedoes from U52, and another just 25 minutes later. At 0710 she eventually sank with the loss of only a few hands.
In December 1993, during a ceremony at Emden, Admiral Otto H Cilax of the Federal German Navy presented the Commanding Officer of the seventh and current Nottingham with a Plaque, Cap Ribbon and the Ensign from the Fifth Nottingham as a gesture of goodwill and reconciliation. Admiral Cilax's grandfather was the Captain of U52; he recovered these items off a boat from the ship while picking up survivors and they currently reside in the Captain's Cabin Flat.
