HMS Talbot (1895)

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Career

Class and type:	Eclipse class cruiser
Name:	HMS Talbot
Builder:	Devonport Dockyard
Laid down:	March 1894
Launched:	25 April 1895
Commissioned:	15 September 1896
Fate:	Sold for scrapping 6 December 1921
General characteristics
Displacement:	5,600 tons
Length:	350 ft (110 m)
Beam:	53 ft 6 in (16.3 m)
Draught:	20 ft 6 in (6.2 m)
Propulsion:	Two triple expansion oil fired steam engines driving twin screws 8,000 ihp
Speed:	19.5 knots
Complement:	450
Armament:	As built: Five x 6in Quick Firing guns (5 x 1) Six x 4.7in guns(6 x 1) Six x 3 pounder Quick Firing guns (6 x 1) Two machine guns Three x 18in torpedo tubes After 1905: Eleven x 6in Quick Firing guns Three x 12 pounder guns Three 18in torpedo tubes
Armour:	3 in - 1.5 in gun shields 3 in engine hatch 1.5-3 in decks 1.5-3 in conning tower

For other ships of the same name, see HMS Talbot.

HMS Talbot was an Eclipse class protected cruiser of the Royal Navy.

[edit] Early career

She was commissioned on 15 September 1895 for service on the America and West Indies Station. She was present at Chemulpo Bay in 1904, during the historical naval battle between two Russian ships, the cruiser Varyag and the gunboat Korietz against a fleet of the Imperial Japanese Navy. Future Arctic explorers and members of Robert Falcon Scott's ill-fated Terra Nova Expedition Patrick Keohane and Edward Evans served aboard her.

[edit] The First World War

During the First World War she was assigned to Cruiser Force G and the 12 Cruiser Squadron operating in the English Channel. In September of 1914 she captured a German merchant ship. In April 1915 she had been sent to the Dardanelles and participated in the Battle of Gallipoli. Talbot was initially attached to the First Battle Squadron of the fleet and supported the landings at the tip of the Peninsula. On 26 April she supported the battleship HMS Goliath during attempts to support the landing on “Y Beach”. In June she was the Senior Naval Officers' ship at Gaba Tepe, and during the Suvla landings she was the flagship of the 3rd Squadron. She remained at Gallipoli throughout the campaign, and covered the evacuation of Anzac beach in December 1915 and of Helles in January 1916.

In May 1916 Talbot was operating off the East African coast as part of the Cape Command. In January 1917 she was at Kiswere (Tanzania), when the second period of German commerce raids began and in 1918 she was off the Cape of Good Hope.

She was sold for scrap on 6 December 1921.