and commissioned on 3 April 1902 by Captain Charles John Graves-Sawle. The ship was assigned to the Mediterranean Fleet upon commissioning, and left Portsmouth in early May, arriving at Malta later that month. She made two deployments to the Mediterranean, 1902–1905 and 1907–1912. In September 1902 she visited Greek waters for combined maneuvers with other ships of the cruiser and channel divisions, landing at Nauplia and Argostoli, before she escorted the damaged battleship HMS Hood from Malta to Gibraltar in October. She was reduced to reserve when she returned home in 1912 and was assigned to the 7th Cruiser Squadron shortly after the outbreak of the First World War in August 1914. The squadron was tasked with patrolling the Broad Fourteens of the North Sea in support of a force of destroyers and submarines based at Harwich which protected the eastern end of the English Channel from German warships attempting to attack the supply route between England and France. During the Battle of Heligoland Bight on 28 August, the ship was part of Cruiser Force 'C', in reserve off the Dutch coast, and saw no action. Fate On the morning of 22 September, Aboukir and her sisters, and , were on patrol without any escorting destroyers as they had been forced to seek shelter from bad weather. The three sisters in line abreast, about apart, at a speed of . They were not expecting submarine attack, but they had lookouts posted and had one gun manned on each side to attack any submarines sighted. The weather had moderated earlier that morning and Commodore Reginald Tyrwhitt, commander of the Harwich Force, was en route to reinforce the cruisers with eight destroyers. SM U-9, commanded by Kapitänleutnant Otto Weddigen, had been ordered to attack British transports at Ostend, but had been forced to dive and take shelter from the storm. On surfacing, she spotted the British ships and moved to attack. She fired one torpedo at 06:20 at Aboukir that struck her on the port side; Captain John Drummond thought he had struck a mine and ordered the other two ships to close to transfer his wounded men. Aboukir quickly began listing and capsized around 06:55 despite counterflooding compartments on the opposite side to right her. By the time that Drummond ordered "abandon ship" only one boat was available because the others had either been smashed or could not be lowered as