History
United Kingdom
Name	HMS Contest
Builder	Laird, Son and Co., Birkenhead
Launched	1 December 1894
Fate	Sold for scrap, 1911
General characteristics
Class and type	Banshee-class destroyer
Displacement	290 long tons (295 t)
Length	210 ft (64 m)
Beam	19 ft (5.8 m)
Draught	7 ft (2.1 m)
Speed	27 knots (50 km/h; 31 mph)
Complement	53
Armament	1 × 12 pounder gun 2 × torpedo tubes

HMS Contest was one of three Banshee-class destroyers to serve with the Royal Navy.

She was launched on 1 December 1894 at the Laird, Son and Co shipyard, Birkenhead,^[1] and served most of her career in home waters.

Contest served as part of the Medway Instructional Flotilla in 1901.^[2] In July 1902 she was part of the escort meeting USS Brooklyn, which brought back to England the remains of Lord Pauncefote, British ambassador to the US who died while in office.^[3] Lieutenant Henry Ralph Heathcote was appointed in command on 1 August 1902 (a temporary appointment of Lieutenant L. J. I. Hammond in command appears to have been cancelled),^[4] when she was tender to HMS Cambridge, gunnery school ship off Plymouth. Later the same month she took part in the Coronation Review for King Edward VII on 16 August 1902.^[5] Following the review, she was paid off into the Fleet Reserve to have new boiler feedwater pumps fitted.^[6]

She was sold for scrap on 11 July 1911 for £1760.^[7]

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