HMS Panther (1897)

History
United Kingdom
Name:	HMS Panther
Builder:	Laird, Son & Co., Birkenhead
Laid down:	19 May 1896
Launched:	21 January 1897
Completed:	January 1898
Fate:	Scrapped, 1920
General characteristics
Class & type:	Earnest-class destroyer
Displacement:	395 long tons (401 t)
Length:	210 ft (64 m)
Beam:	21.5 ft (6.6 m)
Draught:	9.75 ft (3.0 m)
Propulsion:	vertical triple-expansion steam engines Coal-fired Normand boilers 6,300 hp (4,698 kW)
Speed:	30 knots (56 km/h; 35 mph)
Complement:	63
Armament:	1 × QF 12-pounder gun 2 × 18 in (460 mm) torpedo tubes

HMS Panther was a B-class torpedo boat destroyer of the British Royal Navy. She was completed by Laird, Son & Company, Birkenhead, in 1897.

Service history

On 20 April 1901 she was commissioned at Devonport by Lieutenant and Commander A. K. Macrorie to take the place of HMS Osprey in the dockyard´s instructional flotilla.^[1] In early December 1901 Commander Cecil Lambert was appointed in command,^[2] and on 5 December 1901 she was recommissioned as tender to the battleship Illustrious on the Mediterranean station.^[3] Lambert was moved to another ship the following month, however, and when she left Devonport for Malta in January 1902,^[4] Lieutenant and Commander Lancelot Napier Turton was in command.

In July 1914, shortly before the Irish Volunteers carried out the Howth gun-running, the Panther was sent to Dublin Bay to guard against such a measure. Bulmer Hobson told a colleague "in strict confidence" that an arms landing was planned for Waterford, in the south of the country, hoping that the news would leak to the authorities. The Panther duly sailed south, and the way was left clear for the operation at Howth to proceed.^[5]

She was sold in 1920.

References