The Minotaur class was a three-ship class of armoured cruisers built in the first decade of the twentieth century for the Royal Navy. These were the last class of armoured cruisers built for the Royal Navy, with that role being substantially replaced by the first battlecruisers. These initially served with the Home Fleet, generally as the flagships of cruiser squadrons. Minotaur became flagship of the China Station in 1910 and Defence served as flagship of the 1st Cruiser Squadron in the Mediterranean from 1912; Shannon remained at home as flagship of several different squadrons. When World War I began in August 1914, Defence participated in the pursuit of the German ships and and Minotaur hunted for the German East Asia Squadron and German commerce raiders in the Pacific and Indian Oceans. Shannon remained with the Grand Fleet, as the Home Fleet was renamed, for the entire war. All three were present at the Battle of Jutland in May 1916, where Defence was sunk with the loss of all men on board. The surviving pair spent most of the rest of the war assigned to the Northern Patrol unsuccessfully searching for German warships and commerce raiders. The pair were scrapped after the war. Design and description The Minotaur-class ships were the last armoured cruisers built for the Royal Navy. They were significantly larger and more heavily armed than their predecessors, although their armour was reduced in an attempt to compensate for the additional weight of the armament. The design was criticized for this weakness as well as the wide dispersal of the turrets along the length of the ship. They have been described by naval historian R. A. Burt as "cruiser editions of the ", and by E.H.H. Archibald of the Greenwich National Maritime Museum as "armed in a manner that presented one of the most ferocious sights in the fleet". A planned fourth ship of the class, Orion, was cancelled due to financial pressures arising from the purchase of the Swiftsure-class battleships. The Minotaur class displaced as built and at deep load. Defence and Minotaur had an overall length of , a beam of and a mean draught of . Shannon had more beam and one foot less draught than her sister ships to evaluate the theory that she might be faster with these proportions than her sisters. The class displaced more, was longer overall, was one foot broader in