HMS Cornwall (1902)

Cornwall at anchor
History
United Kingdom
Name	Cornwall
Namesake	Cornwall
Builder	HM Dockyard, Pembroke
Laid down	11 March 1901
Launched	29 October 1902
Christened	by Emily Harriet, Countess of St Germans
Completed	1 December 1904
Fate	Sold for scrap, 7 July 1920
General characteristics
Class and type	Monmouth-class armoured cruiser
Displacement	9,800 long tons (10,000 t) (normal)
Length	463 ft 6 in (141.3 m) (o/a)
Beam	66 ft (20.1 m)
Draught	25 ft (7.6 m)
Installed power	31 water-tube boilers 22,000 ihp (16,000 kW)
Propulsion	2 × shafts; 2 × triple-expansion steam engines
Speed	23 knots (43 km/h; 26 mph)
Complement	678
Armament	2 × twin, 10 × single 6 in (152 mm) guns 10 × single 12-pdr (3 in (76 mm)) guns 3 × single 3-pdr (1.9 in (47 mm)) guns 2 × 18 in (450 mm) torpedo tubes
Armour	Belt: 2–4 in (51–102 mm) Decks: 0.75–2 in (19–51 mm) Barbettes: 4 in (102 mm) Turrets: 4 in (102 mm) Conning tower: 10 in (254 mm)

HMS Cornwall was one of 10 Monmouth-class armoured cruisers built for the Royal Navy in the first decade of the 20th century. She was assigned to the 2nd Cruiser Squadron of the Channel Fleet on completion in 1903. The ship was refitted in 1907 in preparation for service as a training ship for cadets with the 4th Cruiser Squadron on the North America and West Indies Station beginning in 1908.

In 1909 she toured the Mediterranean and the Baltic, where she entertained the Kaiser who visited on his yacht the Hohenzollern at Kiel on 24 June.^[1]

Cornwall ran aground in 1911 while trying to free another cruiser, but was successfully refloated and repaired.

She captured a German merchant ship days after the beginning of World War I in August 1914 and was then sent to the Central Atlantic to search for German commerce raiders. Later that year, the ship was assigned to the squadron that destroyed the German East Asia Squadron at the Battle of the Falklands, where she helped to sink a German light cruiser. Cornwall briefly blockaded a German cruiser in East Africa in early 1915 before she was sent to participate in the Dardanelles Campaign a month later. The ship was then transferred to the China Station late in the year and remained there until the end of 1916. She was then transferred to the North America Station that year for convoy escort duties and remained on that duty for the rest of the war. Cornwall became a training ship in 1919 before she was paid off later that year. The ship was sold for scrap in 1920.