Acquisition and Construction
At the start of the 20th century, the British Admiralty maintained that naval defence of the British Empire, including the Dominions, should be unified under the Royal Navy. Attitudes on this matter softened during the first decade, and at the 1909 Imperial Conference, the Admiralty proposed the creation of Fleet Units: forces consisting of a battlecruiser, three light cruisers, six destroyers, and three submarines. While Australia and Canada were encouraged to purchase fleet units to serve as the core of new national navies, other fleet units would be operated by the Royal Navy at distant bases, particularly in the Far East; New Zealand was asked to partially subsidise a fleet unit for the China Station.
To this end, the Prime Minister of New Zealand, Sir Joseph Ward, announced on 22 March 1909 that his country would fund a battleship (later changed to an Indefatigable-class battlecruiser) as an example to other countries. It is unclear why this design was selected, given that it was known to be inferior to the battlecruisers entering service with the Imperial German Navy (German: Kaiserliche Marine). Historian John Roberts has suggested that the request may have been attributable to the Royal Navy's practice of using small battleships and large cruisers as flagships of stations far from Britain, or it might have reflected the preferences of the First Sea Lord and Admiral of the Fleet John Fisher, preferences not widely shared. The New Zealand Government took out a loan to fund the cost of the ship.
New Zealand's keel was laid at Fairfield Shipbuilding and Engineering’s yard on the Clyde on 20 June 1910. Launched on 1 July 1911, the battlecruiser was commissioned into the Royal Navy four days before she was completed on 23 November 1912.
Read more about this topic: HMS New Zealand (1911)
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