Built as a Second-class protected cruiser by the Pembroke Dockyard for the Royal Navy.
21 November 1893 launched as the HMS FLORA one of the Astraea-class, seven sisters.
Displacement 4,360 ton. Dim. 104.24 x 15.08 x 6.4m. (draught), length bpp. 97.53m.
Powered by two 3-cyl triple expansion steam engines, 7,500 ihp. Maximum 9.500 ihp, twin shafts 18 knots, full speed 19.5 knots.
Bunker capacity 1,000 ton coal.
Armament: 2 – 6 inch QF, 8 – 4.7 inch QF, 10 – 6pdrs QF, 1 – 3 pdr QF and 4 – 18 inch torpedo tubes.
Her steel hull was copper sheathed.
Crew 318.
24 July 1895 commissioned, building cost £253,783.
She was built under the Naval Defence Act of 1889.
Till so far not much known of her career.
1903 At that time she was a unit of the British Pacific Squadron
03 December 1903 under command of Captain Salisbury at around 7 a.m. during dense fog she was running aground near Village Point, Denman Island B.C. The forepart of the ship was clean out of the water, and when the tide was raising her stern deck got flooded and water was streaming below decks. Her bow was stuck fast on the rocks.
When she was refloated I could not find.
In 1906 she visited the Pitcairn Islands for five days.
During her stay a torpedo party of her crew and the crew of the HMS CAMBRIAN blasted a boat passage in Bounty Bay.
When Millie Flora Coffin was born in 1907 she carried on the tradition of some island children being given names which commemorated naval visits.
1909 She revisited Pitcairn Island.
April 1915 in use as a training ship renamed as INDUS II.
12 December 1922 sold for breaking up, and she was scrapped in Dover.
Pitcairn Islands 2010 $1 sg?, scott?
Source: Wikipedia. Ships of the Royal Navy by J.J. Colledge. Conway’s All the World’s Fighting Ships 1860 – 1905. Pitcairn Islands Stamp Bulletin 114. Various web-sites.