HMS Prince George (1895)

	HMS Prince George, painting by William Frederick Mitchell, 1897
History
United Kingdom
Name	HMS Prince George
Namesake	Prince George, the future King George V
Builder	Portsmouth Dockyard
Laid down	10 September 1894
Launched	22 August 1895
Christened	Duchess of York
Commissioned	26 November 1896
Decommissioned	21 February 1920
Renamed	HMS Victorious II in July or September 1918; name reverted to Prince George in February 1919
Fate	Sold for scrapping 22 September 1921; Wrecked 30 December 1921;
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)
Propulsion	2 × 3-cylinder triple expansion steam engines, twin screws
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 Prince George was a Majestic-class pre-dreadnought battleship launched in 1895. She was named after the future George V of the United Kingdom and was the fourth and final ship to bear that name. Commissioned in 1896, she initially served with the Channel Fleet until 1904. She was involved in a collision with her sister ship, Hannibal, and the resulting damage meant that much of the latter part of 1903 was spent being repaired. After a refit in 1904, she was assigned to the Atlantic Fleet and then from 1907, she was part of the Home Fleet. In 1912, she was assigned to the 7th Battle Squadron.

When World War I broke out Prince George, together with the rest of the squadron, was attached to the Channel Fleet during the early stages of the war. In early 1915, she was dispatched to the Mediterranean for service in the Dardanelles Campaign. She participated in bombardments of Turkish forts and supported the Allied operations at Gallipoli, including the evacuation from the peninsula late in 1915. She spent the remainder of the war back in the United Kingdom, initially as an accommodation ship before being converted to a depot ship for destroyers in 1918 and stationed at Scapa Flow. For this latter role, she was renamed Victorious II before reverting to her original name in 1919. Decommissioned in 1920, she was sold for scrapping to a German company but sank off the Netherlands during transit to Germany.

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