HMS Iris was an Iris Class

Iris class cruiser

The Iris class comprised two ships, and , which served with the Royal Navy. They were the Royal Navy's first all steel ships.They were designed as dispatch vessels by William White under the direction of Nathaniel Barnaby but were later re-created as Second Class Cruisers...

 second-class cruiser of the Royal Navy

Royal Navy

The Royal Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Founded in the 16th century, it is the oldest service branch and is known as the Senior Service...

. The Iris class ships were the first all-steel ships to serve with the Royal Navy and were employed as armed dispatch vessels. She had a double bottom and her Maudslay machinery produced 7300 hp, slightly less than her stablemate HMS Mercury

HMS Mercury (1878)

HMS Mercury was an Iris class second class cruiser of the Royal Navy. The two ships of the class were the first all steel ships in the Royal Navy. She was distinguished from the Iris by her straight bow, which gave her a slightly shorter length of 315 feet...

, but her 17.35 knots (34 km/h) still made her one of the fastest ships of her day. Mercury was identical less an upright stem and a different arrangement of head sail.

She was laid down at the Pembroke Dockyard on 10 November 1875, launched on 12 April 1877 and completed on 18 April 1879. She was commissioned on 27 April 1880 and her first commander was Captain Edward Seymour, with Lieutenant Robert Archer as First Lieutenant. She served in the Mediterranean from 1879 to 1887, then in the Portsmouth Reserve from 1887 to 1903. She was a tender

Ship's tender

A ship's tender, usually referred to as a tender, is a boat, or a larger ship used to service a ship, generally by transporting people and/or supplies to and from shore or another ship...

 to HMS St. Vincent

HMS St Vincent (1815)

HMS St Vincent was a 120-gun first rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy, laid down in 1810 at Plymouth Dockyard and launched on 11 March 1815 before a crowd that was put at 50,000 spectators.-Service:...

in 1903 and 1904 and was sold off in 1905.