Built by the Thames Ironworks and Shipbuilding Co, HMS Theseus was an Edgar-class protected cruiser of the Royal Navy. The Edgars were similar but smaller versions of the Blake class. Theseus was launched at Leamouth, London in 1892 and commissioned on 14 January 1896.[1]
Trials of the Theseus
With her boilers filled with Medway water, the Theseus left the Nore at 9.30 am. on Wednesday, December 6th, and proceeded on the preliminary eight hours' trial, with the result that despite the priming of the after boilers, caused by the impurity of the feed-water, 10,300 indicated horsepower was developed by the engines, with a boiler pressure of 150 lb. per square inch, and little or no air-pressure in the stokeholds.
The Theseus was of the same dimensions as her sister ship the Grafton, viz.:-360it. long, 60ft. beam, and 7391 tons displacement, at which her mean draught was 23ft. 9in. She was fitted with independent twin engines-in separate enginerooms-of the inverted three-cylinder triple-expansion type, each engine driving a three-bladed screw propeller of 16ft. 9in. diameter. Steam was generated in eight single-ended four-furnaced circular tubular steel boilers, each 16ft. 2in. in diameter, and 9ft. lOin. long, having a total beating surface of 24,416 square feet, and a grate surface of 730 square feet, all made for a working pressure of 155 lb. per square inch. Throughout the resumed official trial the weather was very rough, it blowing half a gale of wind all day with a heavy sea, and as more than half of the trial was done against both, it was considered a highly successful and satisfactory one.[2]
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