HMS Illustrious (1896)

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Career Royal Navy Ensign
Builder: Chatham Dockyard
Laid down: 11 March 1895
Launched: 17 September 1896
Commissioned: 10 May 1898
Decommissioned: 1919
Fate: Scrapped 1920
General characteristics
Displacement: 14,900 tons
Length: 390 ft (120 m)
Beam: 75 ft (23 m)
Draught: 26 ft 6 in (8.1 m)
Speed: 19.75 knots
Complement: 318
Armament:

4 × 12 inch BL guns
12 × 6 inch QF guns
18 × 12 pounder QF
12 × 3 pounder QF

5 × 18-inch (457 mm) torpedo tubes

The third HMS Illustrious of the Royal Navy was a Majestic-class pre-dreadnought, launched in 1896.

She had a displacement of 14,900 tonnes and an armament of four 12-inch (305 mm) guns and twelve 6-inch (152 mm) guns. She served in the Channel Fleet from her commission into the Royal Navy to September 1908. She went into reserve and was transferred to the 3rd Fleet in 1912. At the outbreak of war in 1914 she was recommissioned as a guard-ship for Loch Aye, Lough Swilly, Tyne and the Humber, and 2 of her 12-inch guns were re-used in the Tyne Turrets. Due to obsolescence, she was used as an ammunition store ship for the remainder of the war, finally being scrapped in 1920.

The future First Sea Lord John H. D. Cunningham served aboard her as assistant navigator.

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