HMS St George was a first class cruiser of the Edgar class. She was launched on 23 June 1892.
In 1895 St George was on the West Coast of Africa. Together with two Redbreast-class gunboats and two local steamers, crew from the ship in one of her boats[i] took part in a reprisal at Nimbi in the Niger delta against King Koko for the Akassa raid.
The crisis at Zanzibar when British warships bombarded the Sultan's Palace – St George on the left
St George took part in the 40-minute-long Anglo-Zanzibar War in 1896. The obsolete armed yacht HHSGlasgow of Zanzibar fired upon a British flotilla led by St George, also comprising Philomel, Racoon, Sparrow and Thrush. The response sank Glasgow with a hole below the waterline. With a Union Jack flying over the sinking yacht in surrender, the flotilla launched lifeboats to rescue the crew of Glasgow which would lie at the bottom of Zanzibar Town Harbour until 1912.
Following the end of this tour, the captain of Ophir, Commodore Alfred Winsloe, reverted to his position as Commodore commanding the Cruiser squadron, and was in late 1901 posted to St George,[1] which thus became the lead ship of the squadron and carried his broad pennant. In May 1902 she was taken into Portsmouth for a refit.[2] She took part in the fleet review at Spithead on 16 August 1902 for the coronation of King Edward VII,[3] and in September that year was part of a squadron visiting Nauplia and Crete for combined manoeuvres in the Mediterranean Sea.[4] After her return to Portsmouth in late October, she paid off on 15 November and her crew was transferred to HMSGood Hope.[5]
Roger Chesneau and Eugene M. Kolesnik, ed., Conway's All the World's Fighting Ships 1860–1905, (Conway Maritime Press, London, 1979), ISBN0-85177-133-5
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