Operational History
HMS Victorious was commissioned on 4 November 1896 for service in the Fleet Reserve at Chatham Dockyard. On 8 June 1897 she went into full commission for service in the Mediterranean Fleet. Before leaving the United Kingdom, she was present at the Fleet Review at Spithead for the Diamond Jubilee of Queen Victoria on 26 June 1897. She moved to the Mediterranean where she relieved the battleship Anson. In February 1898 Victorious was detached from the Mediterranean Fleet for service on the China Station. On 16 February she ran hard aground while entering the harbor at Port Said en route to China. Several tugs attempted to free her but were unable; pump dredgers were needed to shift the sediment around the hull to get her free. She was successfully refloated on 18 February. In 1900, she returned to the Mediterranean and underwent a refit at Malta. Her Mediterranean service over, Victorious was paid off at Chatham on 8 August 1903 and began a refit there that lasted until February 1904.
Victorious was recommissioned at Devonport on 2 February 1904 to serve as second flagship of the Channel Fleet. On 14 July 1904 the torpedo boat TB 113 rammed her at Hamoaze, slightly damaging her. When under a reorganization on 1 January 1905, the Channel Fleet became the new Atlantic Fleet, and Victorious became an Atlantic Fleet unit. Captain Robert Falcon Scott, the Antarctic explorer, served as her Captain, acting as Flag Captain to Rear-Admiral George Egerton aboard her, for a period in 1906. Her Atlantic Fleet service ended when she paid off at Devonport on 31 December 1906. On 1 January 1907 Victorious was recommissioned to serve at the Nore as part of the Nore Division of the new Home Fleet. She underwent a refit at Chatham in 1908 in which she was converted to burn fuel oil and had main battery fire control and radio installed. She was reduced to a nucleus crew, in commission in reserve, in March 1909. Victorious was transferred to the Devonport Division, Home Fleet, in January 1911, and to the 3rd Fleet in May 1912. She damaged her sternwalk in a collision with her sister ship Majestic in fog on 14 July 1912 and began a short refit at Chatham in December 1913.
Read more about this topic: HMS Victorious (1895)
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