Apollo-class cruiser

The Apollo class were second-class protected cruisers designed by Sir William White and built for the Royal Navy in the late 19th century. Twenty-one ships of this class were built, making it the largest single class of steel cruisers ever built for the Royal Navy to the same design.

The design followed White's standard pattern for smaller steel cruisers, being of protected type (with an internal curved steel armour deck protecting the machinery spaces) and featuring low freeboard amidships with raised bulwarks connecting the forecastle and poop for weatherliness. It drew heavily from the slightly earlier Medea, but with enlarged dimensions and a revised armament which, for the first time in Royal Navy 2nd-class cruisers, included the new 4.7-inch quick-firing gun. Six of these were carried; three on each side of the main deck. Two 6-inch guns were carried on the centreline, one at either end of the ship upon the forecastle and the poop.

Ten ships of the class were sheathed and coppered for tropical service. These were; Aeolus, Brilliant, Indefatigable, Intrepid, Iphigenia, Pique, Rainbow, Retribution, Sirius and Spartan. The sheathing added 200 tons to each ship's displacement and reduced their speed by a quarter of a knot.

Critical opinion of the design was that it was an improvement on the Medea, but still rather small. In practice they proved to be wet ships and poor seaboats, the low deck amidships being a factor.

Twenty-one ships of this class were ordered under the 1889 Naval Defence Act, making up half of the Act's required forty-two cruisers. The obvious limitations of the Apollos led to a further enlarged & improved design (the Astraea class) being drawn up by White, of which eight units were also ordered under the Naval Defence Act.

Ships of this class served during the Boer War.

Sybille was wrecked 16 January 1901.

Latona, Apollo, Intrepid, Iphigenia, Andromache, Naiad and Thetis were converted into minelaying cruisers around 1907.