HMS Talbot (1895)

HMS "Talbot" was an "Eclipse" class protected cruiser of the Royal Navy.

Early career

She was commissioned on 15 September 1895 for service on the America and West Indies Station. She was present at Chemulpo Bay in 1904, during the historical naval battle between two Russian ships, the cruiser "Varyag" and the gunboat "Korietz" against a fleet of the Imperial Japanese Navy. Future Arctic explorers and members of Robert Falcon Scott's ill-fated Terra Nova Expedition Patrick Keohane and Edward Evans served aboard her.

The First World War

During the First World War she was assigned to Cruiser Force G and the 12 Cruiser Squadron operating in the English Channel. In September of 1914 she captured a German merchant ship. In April 1915 she had been sent to the Dardanelles and participated in the Battle of Gallipoli. "Talbot" was initially attached to the First Battle Squadron of the fleet and supported the landings at the tip of the Peninsula. On 26 April she supported the battleship HMS "Goliath" during attempts to support the landing on “Y Beach”. In June she was the Senior Naval Officers' ship at Gaba Tepe, and during the Suvla landings she was the flagship of the 3rd Squadron. She remained at Gallipoli throughout the campaign, and covered the evacuation of Anzac beach in December 1915 and of Helles in January 1916.

In May 1916 "Talbot" was operating off the East African coast as part of the Cape Command. In January 1917 she was at Kiswere (Tanzania), when the second period of German commerce raids began and in 1918 she was off the Cape of Good Hope.

She was sold for scrap on 6 December 1921.

References

*Colledge
*cite web
url = http://www.worldwar1.co.uk/light-cruiser/hms-Eclipse.html
work = Eclipse Class Second Class Protected Cruisers
title = World War 1 Naval Combat
accessdate = 2007-02-04
* [http://www.battleships-cruisers.co.uk/eclipse_class.htm The Eclipse class]
* [http://www.historyofwar.org/articles/weapons_HMS_Talbot.html HMS Talbot's career]