Diadem-class cruiser

The Diadem class was a group of eight first-class protected cruisers built for the Royal Navy in the 1890s, the last British cruisers of that type before the armoured cruiser took over the large-cruiser role. Designed by Sir William White as a cheaper and less manpower-hungry follow-up to the Powerful class, each ship displaced about 11,000 tons and cost around 600,000 pounds. Against the Powerfuls the designers gave up speed, from a 22 knot design to about 20 knots, and thinned the protective deck from six inches to four, and they replaced the single 9.2 inch guns fore and aft with pairs of 6 inch guns, which saved roughly 15 percent a ship. The eight were Diadem, Andromeda, Amphitrite, Argonaut, Ariadne, Europa, Niobe and Spartiate. Fairfield at Govan built the lead ship Diadem, launched on 21 October 1896, and Argonaut, launched on 24 January 1898; the others came from yards including Vickers, John Brown and Thomson. Critics such as Fred Jane faulted the class for indifferent speed, poor manoeuvrability and light main armament. The ships served mostly in home waters and were training or depot ships by 1914; Ariadne, torpedoed in 1917, was the only war loss, and all but Andromeda had been sold for scrap by 1932.