HMS Express (1896)

HMS ''Express'' was a B-class torpedo boat destroyer of the British Royal Navy. She was completed by Laird, Son & Company, Birkenhead, in 1896. Like many contemporary British destroyers, she was a "builder's special", designed to Admiralty specifications but built to the builder's own design.

Design and construction

The 1896–1897 shipbuilding programme of the British Admiralty included orders for 20 torpedo boat destroyers. Of these, 17 were "thirty-knotters", as ordered under the 1894–1895 and 1895–1896 programmes, which had a contract speed of . The remaining three destroyers, ordered from Laird (''Express''), J & G Thomson () and Thornycroft () were "specials", which were required to reach higher speeds. While Thomson's and Thornycroft's destroyers had contract speeds of , Laird's design was required to reach a speed of .Friedman 2009, pp. 53, 55.Lyon 2001, p. 23.

''Express'' was long overall, with a beam of and a draught of . Displacement was light and full load. Four coal-fired Normand boilers fed steam at to two triple expansion engines rated at .Lyon 2001, p. 26. Four evenly spaced funnels were fitted.Friedman 2009, p. 55. Up to of coal were carried, sufficient to give an endurance of at .Friedman 2009, p. 292.

''Express'' carried the specified armament for the thirty-knotters of a QF 12 pounder 12 cwt ( calibre) gun on a platform on the ship's conning tower (in practice the platform was also used as the ship's bridge), with a secondary armament of five 6-pounder guns, and two 18-inch (450 mm) torpedo tubes.Lyon 2001, pp. 98–99.Friedman 2009, p. 40. While the ship carried the same armament as normal thirty-knotter destroyers, the more powerful engines needed more coal and hence more stokers were needed to feed the coal to the engines, with ''Express'' crew being 73 officers and men, compared to 63 for standard Laird-built thirty-knotters.Lyon 2001, p. 106.Manning 1961, p. 40.

''Express'' was laid down on at Laird's Birkenhead shipyard on 1 December 1896 as Yard number 629, and was launched on 11 December 1897. ''Express'' was subject to an extensive series of trials over an 18-month period in an attempt to reach the contracted speed of 33 knots. Although Lairds managed to drive the ship's machinery to up to , well in excess of the rated , and experimented with different propellers, ''Express'' failed to reach the required speeds. It was eventually decided by the Admiralty to accept ''Express'' despite this failure in recognition of Laird's great efforts and expense in trying to reach the over-optimistic requirement, and the fact that forcing the ship's machinery further was likely to cause excessive wear.Lyon 2001, p. 29. ''Express'' was delivered to Devonport for further trials in August 1902, and eventually commissioned later that year.

In 1913 ''Express'', along with all other surviving "30 knotter" vessels with 4 funnels, were classified by the Admiralty as the B-class to provide some system to the naming of HM destroyers (at the same time, the 3-funnelled, "30 knotters" became the C-class and the 2-funnelled ships the D-class).

Service

''Express'' served in British waters throughout her career. ''Express'' collided with the stores ship RFA ''Aquarius'' in December 1907 at Lamlash, Isle of Arran, Scotland. In 1909 ''Express'' was part of the Fifth Destroyer Flotilla, based at Devonport, and was still part of that Flotilla in 1912. On 30 August 1912 the Admiralty directed all destroyers were to be grouped into classes designated by letters based on contract speed and appearance. Four-funneled, 30-knotter destroyers were grouped as the B Class, and ''Express'' was assigned to this class.Gardiner and Gray 1985, p. 18.Manning 1961, pp. 17–18. In 1912, it was decided to allocate older destroyers to dedicated Patrol Flotillas, with ''Express'' being allocated to the Seventh Flotilla, based at Devonport.Manning 1961, p. 25. On 8 May 1913, she struck the British passenger-cargo ship in the dock at Grimsby and damaged her.
''Express'' remained part of the Seventh Flotilla until November 1913, but by January 1914 had transferred to the Eighth Destroyer Flotilla, another patrol flotilla based at Chatham.

''Express'' remained part of the Eighth Flotilla at the outbreak of the First World War, with the Flotilla transferring to the Forth Estuary.Manning 1961, p. 26. ''Express'', still part of the Eighth Flotilla, was undergoing a long refit in January 1917, but in June 1917 she transferred to the East Coast Convoy Flotilla, based on the Humber, which became part of the Seventh Destroyer Flotilla in July. By December that year, ''Express'' had moved to the Northern Division of the Coast of Ireland Station, based at Larne and carrying out patrols in the North Channel between Scotland and the North of Ireland. ''Express'' remained operating on the North Channel Patrol until the end of the war.

''Express'' was on the Sale List in December 1919, and was sold for scrapping to G Clarkson of Whitby on 17 March 1920.

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Notes

Bibliography

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Express (1896)
Ships built on the River Mersey
1896 ships
B-class destroyers (1913)
World War I destroyers of the United Kingdom
Maritime incidents in 1913