Overview
The Lion class documented a major increase in British battlecruiser gun power, speed, and size.
Developed for Royal Navy, Lion class belongs to the Battleships and capital ships family and is associated with Dreadnought and World War I. Its documented designations include Battlecruiser, while its intended roles include Fleet combatant and Scouting.
Development and construction
The class adopted 13.5-inch guns and a more effective centerline turret arrangement than the first battlecruiser generation.
The documented program for Lion class lists 2 planned, 2 ordered, 2 laid down, 2 completed, and 0 cancelled, with design work beginning in 1909, construction beginning in 1909, and construction ending in 1912. These figures define the scale and chronology currently supported by the class sources.
Design characteristics and intended role
The surviving classification data associates Lion class with Battlecruiser, Steam turbine, and Superfiring turrets. Read together with the recorded roles of Fleet combatant and Scouting, these attributes show the operational problem the design was intended to address without implying specifications that the sources do not establish.
The class record identifies Royal Navy as the principal design or service authority. Where individual ships changed navy, name, or pennant, those later identities are retained on the ship pages rather than treated as separate vessels.
Service history and class roster
Lion and Princess Royal served extensively with the Battle Cruiser Fleet and fought in the North Sea, including at Jutland.
The class roster currently links 2 ships. Named members include HMS Lion and HMS Princess Royal. The linked ships are associated with Royal Navy.
Historical significance
The class became the principal British fast-capital-ship design immediately before World War I.
Lion class is most useful when read as both a design and a group of individual careers. The class page establishes the shared technical and operational context; the linked ship pages preserve differences in construction, service identity, deployment, transfer, preservation, and fate where those details are documented.
Ships in this class
Showing 2 recorded class members.
Sources and further reading
- Conway's All the World's Fighting Ships, 1906–1921Conway Maritime Press
- BattlecruisersChatham Publishing
- Lion (1910) — as-fitted technical drawings ↗Royal Museums Greenwich · accessed 2026-09-18