HMS Philomel (1890)

HMS Philomel in New Zealand service
History
United Kingdom
Name	Philomel
Builder	HM Naval Dockyard, Plymouth
Launched	28 August 1890
Commissioned	1890
Decommissioned	1941
Fate	Formally transferred to Royal New Zealand Navy
New Zealand
Commissioned	1941
Decommissioned	1947
Fate	Sunk at Coromandel 1949
General characteristics
Class and type	Pearl-class cruiser
Displacement	2,575 long tons (2,616 t)
Length	278 ft (84.7 m)
Beam	41 ft (12.5 m)
Draught	17 ft 6 in (5.33 m)
Installed power	7,500 ihp (5,600 kW) on forced draught
Propulsion	2 × 3-cylinder triple-expansion steam engines 4 × double-ended cylindrical boilers 2 screws
Speed	19 knots (35 km/h; 22 mph)
Complement	220
Armament	8 × QF 4.7-inch (120 mm) guns 8 × 3-pounder (1.4 kg) guns 4 × machine-guns 2 × 14-inch (356 mm) torpedo tubes

HMS Philomel, later HMNZS Philomel, was a Pearl-class cruiser. She was the fifth ship of that name and served with the Royal Navy. After her commissioning in 1890, she served on the Cape of Good Hope Station and later with the Mediterranean Fleet.

In 1914, she was loaned to New Zealand for service with what would later become the Royal New Zealand Navy. During the early stages of the First World War she performed convoy escort duties and then carried out operations in the Mediterranean against the Turks. She later conducted patrols in the Red Sea and Persian Gulf.

By 1917, she was worn out and dispatched back to New Zealand where she served as a depot ship in Wellington Harbour for minesweepers. In 1921 she was transferred to the Devonport Naval Base in Auckland for service as a training ship. Decommissioned and sold for scrap in 1947, her hulk was scuttled in 1949.