HMS Bulwark was one of five pre-dreadnought battleships built for the Royal Navy at the end of the 19th century. The Londons were a sub-class of the pre-dreadnoughts. Completed in 1902 she was initially assigned to the Mediterranean Fleet as its flagship. The ship then served with the Channel and Home Fleets from 1907 to 1910, usually as a flagship. From 1910 to 1914, she was in reserve in the Home Fleet. Following the start of the First World War in August 1914, Bulwark, along with the rest of the squadron, was attached to the reformed Channel Fleet to protect the British Expeditionary Force as it moved across the English Channel to France. On 26 November 1914 she was destroyed by a large internal explosion with the loss of 741 men near Sheerness; only a dozen men survived the detonation. It was probably caused by the overheating of cordite charges that had been placed adjacent to a boiler-room bulkhead. Little of the ship survived to be salvaged and her remains were designated a controlled site under the Protection of Military Remains Act 1986. Diving on the wreck is generally forbidden. Design and description The five ships of the London class were ordered in 1898 in response to increased naval construction for the Imperial Russian Navy. The design for the London class was prepared in 1898; it was a virtual repeat of the preceding , though with significant revision to the forward armour protection scheme. Rather than a traditional transverse bulkhead for the forward end of the main belt armour, the belt was carried further forward and gradually tapered in thickness. Deck armour was also strengthened. Bulwark was long overall, with a beam of and a draught of at deep load. She displaced normally and up to fully loaded. The ship had a metacentric height of . Her crew numbered 738 officers and ratings as a private ship and up to 789 when serving as a flagship. The London-class ships were powered by a pair of three-cylinder inverted vertical triple-expansion steam engines. The cylinders were , and diameter with a stroke of . Each set drove one screw, using steam provided by twenty Belleville boilers. The boilers were trunked into two funnels located amidships. The London-class ships had a top speed of from . During her sea trials, Bulwark reached from . The ships carried enough coal to give them a