Built as a light cruiser by the Sheerness Dockyard, Sheerness for the Royal Navy.
March 1896 laid down.
05 December 1896 launched as the HMS PROSERPINE one of the Pelorus class.
Displacement 2,169 ton, dim. 95.55 x 11.13 x 4.9m. (draught), length bpp. 91m.
Powered by triple expansion steam engines, 5,000 ihp, twin shafts, speed 20 knots.
Armament 8 – 4 inch QF, 8 – 3pdr. QF guns and 2 – 18 inch torpedo tubes.
Crew 224.
1899 Commissioned.
HMS PROSERPINE was a Pelorus-class cruiser of the Royal Navy. There were eleven "Third class" protected cruisers in the class, which was designed by Sir William White. While well-armed for their size, they were primarily workhorses for the overseas fleet on "police" duties and did not serve with the main battle fleet.
They displaced 2,135 tons, had a crew complement of 224 men and were armed with eight QF 4 inch (102 mm) (25 pounder) guns, eight 3 pounder guns, three machine guns, and two 18 inch (457 mm) torpedo tubes. With reciprocating triple expansion engines and a variety of boilers, the top speed was 20 knots (37 km/h).
Service history
HMS PROSERPINE was laid down at Sheerness Dockyard in March 1896 and launched on 5 December 1896.
After commission a unit of the 7th Cruiser Squadron of the Channel Fleet.
She served at the North America and West Indies Station under Commander G.C.A. Marescaux, and after return in the U.K paid off at Chatham in early November 1901. Shortly after returning home, she was involved in a collision while she was anchored off Sheerness harbour. The Royal Zeeland Steamship Company mail boat KONINGIN REGENTES struck the bow of PROSERPINE (The Dutch passenger ship KONINGIN REGENTES sailing in a service between the U.K. and Flushing came in collision with the PROSERPINE on 6 November 1901during heavy fog, the passengers were taken on board the PROSERPINE and the KONINGIN REGENTES was beached, she was later refloated and repaired, she was lost much later by a torpedo hit of a German U-boat), leaving slight damage to both vessels. PROSERPINE was subsequently taken to Chatham Dockyard for repairs, and paid off at the naval base there 28 November 1901.
26 February 1913 recommissioned for the Mediterranean, based in Malta.
By outbreak of World War I she was a unit of the Eight Battle Squadron of the Channel Fleet., taking part in the operation that transported three Marine battalions to Ostend, Belgium. Then she was sent to Gibraltar as a unit of the Gibraltar Patrol, but the same year already send to Egypt for defending the Suez Canal. April 1915 used to patrol the coast south of Alexandretta (now Iskenderun, Turkey.)
Later that year she was ordered to proceed to Mesopotamia to support the British intervention there, and till the end of World War I she stayed in the Persian Gulf.
She was sold for scrap on 30 November 1919 in Alexandria, Egypt and in 1923 broken up in Genova, Italy.
Guyana 2015 $80 sg?, scott?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Proserpine_(1896) Ships of the Royal Navy by J J Colledge. Various other internet sites.