HMS Castor was one of the Cambrian subclass of the C-class

C class cruiser

The C class was a group of twenty-eight light cruisers of the Royal Navy, and were built in a sequence of seven classes known as the Caroline , Calliope , Cambrian , Centaur , Caledon , Ceres and Carlisle classes...

 of light cruiser

Light cruiser

A light cruiser is a type of small- or medium-sized warship. The term is a shortening of the phrase "light armored cruiser", describing a small ship that carried armor in the same way as an armored cruiser: a protective belt and deck...

s. Her sister ships were HMS Cambrian, HMS Canterbury

HMS Canterbury (1915)

HMS Canterbury was a C-class light cruiser of the British Royal Navy. She was part of the Cambrian group of the C-class of cruisers. Unlike the rest of the subclass, Canterbury was armed with six torpedo tubes instead of the usual four....

, and HMS Constance

HMS Constance (1915)

HMS Constance was a C-class light cruiser of the British Royal Navy. She was part of the Cambrian group of the C-class of cruisers....

. Design of this class was based on the earlier cruiser

Cruiser

A cruiser is a type of warship. The term has been in use for several hundreds of years, and has had different meanings throughout this period...

s HMS Champion

HMS Champion (1915)

HMS Champion was a C-class light cruiser of the British Royal Navy.Eight light cruisers were ordered for the Royal Navy in the 1913 budget. The six ships of the Caroline class used conventional direct drive turbine engines but two, Champion and Calliope had experimental engine designs using geared...

 and HMS Calliope

HMS Calliope (1914)

HMS Calliope was a British C class light cruiser of the Royal Navy under construction at the outbreak of World War I. Both Calliope and her sister ship Champion were based on HMS Caroline. They were effectively test ships for the use of geared turbines which resulted in the one less funnel. They...

, which, in turn, were based on the HMS Caroline

HMS Caroline (1914)

HMS Caroline was a C-class light cruiser of the British Royal Navy. Caroline was launched and commissioned in 1914. At the time of her decommissioning in 2011 she was the second-oldest ship in Royal Navy service, after HMS Victory...

 class, using the same hull as the Carolines but with two funnels and maximum armor thickness of 4" as opposed to 3" in the Carolines. She was built by Cammell Laird

Cammell Laird

Cammell Laird, one of the most famous names in British shipbuilding during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, came about following the merger of Laird, Son & Co. of Birkenhead and Johnson Cammell & Co. of Sheffield at the turn of the twentieth century.- Founding of the business :The Company...

, Birkenhead.
Castor normally served as the flagship

Flagship

A flagship is a vessel used by the commanding officer of a group of naval ships, reflecting the custom of its commander, characteristically a flag officer, flying a distinguishing flag...

 of the Commodore, and served as such at the Battle of Jutland

Battle of Jutland

The Battle of Jutland was a naval battle between the British Royal Navy's Grand Fleet and the Imperial German Navy's High Seas Fleet during the First World War. The battle was fought on 31 May and 1 June 1916 in the North Sea near Jutland, Denmark. It was the largest naval battle and the only...

, where she was the flagship of the eleventh destroyer squadron. Ten of her crew were casualties during the battle.

She was damaged but went on to survive the war. Considered obsolete by the 1930s, she was sold on 30 July 1936 and arrived at Rosyth

Rosyth

Rosyth is a town located on the Firth of Forth, three miles south of the centre of Dunfermline. According to an estimate taken in 2008, the town has a population of 12,790....

 in August that year for scrapping

Ship breaking

Ship breaking or ship demolition is a type of ship disposal involving the breaking up of ships for scrap recycling. Most ships have a lifespan of a few decades before there is so much wear that refitting and repair becomes uneconomical. Ship breaking allows materials from the ship, especially...

.

External links

• Cambrian Class Light Cruisers