HMS Scorpion (1910)

HMS Scorpion was one of sixteen Beagle-class destroyers in service with the Royal Navy in the First World War. She was built by Fairfields Govan shipyards on the Clyde and was commissioned on 30 August 1910. She was a coal powered ship and as such was obsolete by the end of the First World War and was scrapped in 1921.

The first commander of HMS Scorpion was the then Lieutenant-Commander Andrew Cunningham. Early days in Scorpion included the Spithead Naval Review of 1911 that stood out in Cunningham's mind as the zenith of British naval power with twenty-six miles of ships including 42 battleships and 68 destroyers. In 1913 the period in home waters came to an end with Scorpion posted to the Mediterranean. The early part of the war saw her involved in the chase of the German battlecruiser SMS Goeben and the Dardanelles Campaign. Scorpion was always at the forefront of the action; her role included escorting bombarding ships, covering minesweeping trawlers and, later, acting as a minesweeper herself.