HMS Tancred (1917)

Ordered in March 1916 at a contract price of £172,316, Tancred was laid down at the William Beardmore and Company shipyard in Dalmuir with the yard number 556 on 6 July 1916.^[6] Launched on 30 June the following year and completed on 1 September, the destroyer was the first ship named for the Christian knight in Torquato Tasso's poem Jerusalem Delivered, a fictional character based on Tancred, Prince of Galilee.^[3][7] Tancred was deployed as part of the Grand Fleet, joining the Eleventh Destroyer Flotilla.^[8] The flotilla took part in the Royal Navy's engagement with one of the final sorties of the German High Seas Fleet during the First World War, on 24 April 1918, although the two fleets did not actually meet and the destroyer returned unharmed.^[9]

After the Armistice of 11 November 1918 that ended the war and the dissolution of the Grand Fleet, Tancred joined the Fifth Destroyer Flotilla of the Home Fleet.^[10] However, the destroyer did not serve long there for the end of the war meant that the navy needed to move to a peacetime level of mobilisation. Both the number of ships and the amount of staff needed to be reduced to save money.^[11] By the middle of 1919, the destroyer had been redeployed to the local defence flotilla at the Firth of Forth, but at a reduced complement.^[12] During the following years, further cuts were made to the fleet. In 1923, the Navy decided to scrap many of the older destroyers in preparation for the introduction of newer and larger vessels.^[13] It was then decided that Tancred would be one of these to be retired.^[14] The destroyer was sold to Cashmore of Newport, Wales, on 17 May 1928 to be broken up at Port Talbot.^[15]