HMS Centurion was the lead ship of her class of two pre-dreadnought battleships built for the Royal Navy in the 1890s. Intended for service abroad, they exchanged heavy armour and a powerful armament for high speed and long range to counter the foreign armoured cruisers then being built as commerce raiders and were rated as second-class battleships.

Completed in 1894, Centurion was assigned to the China Station as its flagship. Together with her sister ship, Barfleur, she supported Allied operations during the Boxer Rebellion of 1899–1901 and contributed landing parties to participate in the Battles of the Taku Forts and of Tientsin. The ship returned home in 1901 to be rebuilt with a more powerful secondary armament. Centurion rejoined the China Station two years later and remained there until 1905 when she returned to Britain. Already made obsolete by the increasing speeds of the cruisers the ship was designed to defend against, she was placed in reserve until 1909. Centurion was decommissioned that year and sold for scrap in 1910.

The Centurion class was designed to meet an Admiralty requirement for ships suitable for use as flagships on the China and Pacific Stations, able to defeat the most powerful foreign ships likely to be encountered there. They had an overall length of 390 feet 9 inches (119.1 m) and a length between perpendiculars of 360 ft (109.7 m), and a beam of 70 feet (21.3 m). Their draught at normal load was 25 ft 8 in (7.82 m) and 26 feet 9 inches (8.2 m) at deep load. The Centurion-class ships displaced 10,634 long tons (10,805 t) at normal load and 11,200 long tons (11,400 t) at deep load. Their steel hulls were sheathed in wood and copper to reduce biofouling. Their crews numbered 620 officers and ratings in 1895 and 600 after they were rebuilt in the early years of the 20th century.

The Centurions were powered by a pair of three-cylinder vertical triple-expansion steam engines, each driving a single propeller, using steam provided by eight coal-fired cylindrical boilers. The engines were designed to produce a total of 9,000 indicated horsepower (6,700 kW) which was intended to allow the ships to make a speed of 17 knots (31 km/h; 20 mph) using natural draught. The engines proved to be slightly more powerful than anticipated and Centurion reached 17.05 knots (31.6 km/h; 19.6 mph) from 9,703 ihp (7,236 kW) during her sea trials. Using forced draught, she attained 18.51 knots (34.3 km/h; 21.3 mph) from 13,214 ihp (9,854 kW) although this often damaged the boilers and was officially discouraged. The Centurion-class ships had a range of 5,230 nautical miles (9,690 km; 6,020 mi) at 10 knots (19 km/h; 12 mph).

The four 32-calibre, breech-loading 10-inch Mk III guns of the main battery were mounted in two twin-gun, circular barbettes, one forward and one aft of the superstructure. Their secondary armament consisted of ten 40-calibre quick-firing (QF) 4.7-inch guns in single mounts. Half a dozen of these guns were mounted on the upper deck, protected by gun shields, and the remaining guns were mounted in casemates in the sides of the hull. Defence against torpedo boats was provided by eight QF six-pounder (2.2-inch (57 mm)) guns and a dozen QF three-pounder (1.9 in (47 mm)) Hotchkiss guns. The ships were also armed with seven 18-inch torpedo tubes, two on each broadside and one in the stern above water and one on each broadside underwater.

The Centurion-class ships were mostly fitted with compound armour although some portions were made from improved Harvey armour. Their waterline main belt ranged in thickness from 9 to 12 inches (229 to 305 mm). The armoured deck lay across the top of the waterline belt and consisted of 2 inches (51 mm) of mild steel. Below the waterline, the 2.5-inch (64 mm) lower deck extended from the 5-inch (127 mm) bases of the barbettes to the bow and stern. The barbettes were 8 or 9 inches (203 or 229 mm) thick and the gun crews were protected by an armoured hood or gunhouse that consisted of 6 inches of nickel steel.

Bilge keels were added to Centurion in 1896–1897 and gun shields were removed from those guns mounted in the fighting tops between 1897 and 1899. Some three-pounders were removed from Centurion's fighting tops about two years later. In September 1901, the ship began a reconstruction that exchanged her 4.7-inch guns with 6-inch guns and upgraded their protection. To help compensate for the additional weight, all of her above-water torpedo tubes were removed as was the aft bridge. The remaining three-pounders in the fighting tops were repositioned to the superstructure and the barbette hoods and the foremast was replaced by a signal mast. Despite these measures there was a slight increase in weight that reduced the ship's speed by about 0.25 knots (0.5 km/h; 0.3 mph). In 1906 all of her remaining three-pounders were removed and the mainmast fighting top was modified as a fire-control position.

Centurion was named after the Roman Army rank and was the sixth ship of her name to serve in the Royal Navy. The ship was laid down at HM Dockyard, Portsmouth on 30 March 1890 and launched on 3 August 1892. She was completed in February 1894 at a cost of £540,090. Centurion was commissioned on 14 February for service on the China Station under the command of Captain Edmund Poë. She sailed for the Far East on 2 March and, upon her arrival at Singapore on 11 April, became the flagship of the China Station when Vice-Admiral The Honourable Sir Edmund Fremantle, Commander-in-Chief of the China Station, hoisted his flag aboard her. Captain John McQuhae relieved Poë three days later. In his turn, McQuhae was relieved by Captain Spencer Login on 21 March 1895. Vice-Admiral Sir Alexander Buller relieved Fremantle on 28 May.