HMS Lee was a
Doxford three funnel - 30 knotdestroyer ordered by the Royal Navy under the 1898 – 1899 Naval Estimates. She was the sixth ship to carry this name since its introduction in 1776 for a 6-gun sloop for service on the Great Lakes.[3][4]
Construction and career
She was laid down on 4 January 1898 at the
William Doxford and Sons shipyard at
Pallion,
Sunderland and launched on 27 January 1899. During her acceptance trials she took a very long time to attain the contract speed of 30 knots and was not accepted into the Royal Navy until March 1901.[3][4]
After commissioning she was deployed to the Channel Fleet and based at Shearness as part of the Medway Instructional Flotilla. In December 1901 she was replaced in the flotilla by
Mermaid, her crew was transferred to the latter ship,[5] and she paid off into the Fleet Reserve.[6]
On 14 July 1907, Lee, which had been operating with the Channel Fleet, collided with the Dutch
protected cruiserFriesland off
Start Point, Devon, holing the destroyer on her port quarter.[7]
On 5 October 1909 she was wrecked off
Blacksod Bay on the west coast of Ireland.[8]
Pennant Numbers
During her career she was not assigned a pennant (pendant) number.[8]
References
NOTE: All tabular data under General Characteristics only from the listed Jane's Fighting Ships volume unless otherwise specified
^Jane, Fred T. (1969) [1905]. Jane’s Fighting Ships 1905. New York: first published by Sampson Low Marston, London 1905, Reprinted ARCO Publishing Company. p. 77.
^
abJane, Fred T. (1969) [1898]. Jane's All the World's Fighting Ships 1898. New York: first published by Sampson Low Marston, London 1898, Reprinted ARCO Publishing Company. p. 84 to 85.
Chesneau, Roger & Kolesnik, Eugene M., eds. (1979). Conway's All The World's Fighting Ships 1860–1905. London: Conway Maritime Press.
ISBN0-85177-133-5.
Dittmar, F. J. & Colledge, J. J. (1972). British Warships 1914–1919. Shepperton, UK: Ian Allan.
ISBN0-7110-0380-7.
Friedman, Norman (2009). British Destroyers: From Earliest Days to the Second World War. Barnsley, UK: Seaforth Publishing.
ISBN978-1-84832-049-9.
Gardiner, Robert & Gray, Randal, eds. (1985). Conway's All The World's Fighting Ships 1906–1921. London: Conway Maritime Press.
ISBN0-85177-245-5.
Lyon, David (2001) [1996]. The First Destroyers. London: Caxton Editions.
ISBN1-84067-3648.
Manning, T. D. (1961). The British Destroyer. London: Putnam & Co.
OCLC6470051.
March, Edgar J. (1966). British Destroyers: A History of Development, 1892–1953; Drawn by Admiralty Permission From Official Records & Returns, Ships' Covers & Building Plans. London: Seeley Service.
OCLC164893555.