HMS Jupiter (1895)

HMS Jupiter
History
United Kingdom
Namesake	Jupiter, Roman king of the gods
Builder	J & G Thomson, Clydebank
Laid down	26 April 1894
Launched	18 November 1895
Completed	May 1897
Commissioned	8 June 1897
Decommissioned	February 1918
Fate	Sold for scrapping 15 January 1920
General characteristics
Class and type	Majestic-class pre-dreadnought battleship
Displacement	16,060 long tons (16,320 t)
Length	421 ft (128 m)
Beam	75 ft (23 m)
Draught	27 ft (8.2 m)
Installed power	8 × Scotch marine boilers 10,000 ihp (7,500 kW)
Propulsion	2 × triple-expansion steam engines 2 × screw propellers
Speed	16 kn (30 km/h; 18 mph)
Complement	672
Armament	4 × BL 12 in (305 mm) guns 12 × QF 6 in (152 mm) guns 16 × 12 pounder (76 mm) guns 12 × 3 pounder (47 mm) quick-firing guns 5 × 18 in (457 mm) torpedo tubes
Armour	Belt armour: 9 in (229 mm) Deck: 2.5 to 4.5 in (64 to 114 mm) Barbettes: 14 in (356 mm) Conning tower: 14 inches

HMS Jupiter was a Majestic-class pre-dreadnought battleship of the Royal Navy. Commissioned in 1897, she was assigned to the Channel Fleet until 1905. After a refit, she was temporarily put in reserve before returning to service with the Channel Fleet in September 1905. In 1908 and rendered obsolete by the emergence of the dreadnought type of battleships, she once again returned to the reserve, this time with the Home Fleet. After another refit, she had a spell as a gunnery training ship in 1912.

Following the outbreak of the First World War, Jupiter served with the Channel Fleet and then as a guard ship on the River Tyne. She was dispatched to Russia in February 1915 to serve as an icebreaker, clearing a route to Arkhangelsk while the regular icebreaker was undergoing a refit. She underwent her own refit later in 1915 and once completed, was transferred to the Suez Canal Patrol. She returned to England late 1916, and spent the remainder of the war based at Devonport. She was scrapped in 1920.