Name HMS General Craufurd Laid down 9 January 1915 Decommissioned 1921 Launched 8 July 1915 Builder Harland and Wolff | Yard number 479 Completed 26 August 1915 Construction started 9 January 1915 Draft 3.2 m | |
 | ||
Namesake General Robert Craufurd | ||
HMS General Craufurd was a First World War Royal Navy Lord Clive-class monitor named for General Robert Craufurd, commander of the British Light Division during the early years of the Peninsula War who was killed in action at the siege of Ciudad Rodrigo in 1812. She is the only ship of the Royal Navy ever to be so named. Her 12 in (300 mm) main battery was stripped from obsolete battleships of the Majestic class.
The Lord Clive-class monitors were built in 1915 to engage German shore artillery in occupied Belgium during the First World War. General Craufurd—with her sisters—was regularly engaged in this service in the Dover Monitor Squadron and was present at the First Ostend Raid, providing cover for the Inshore Squadron.
In November 1918, General Craufurd and her sisters were put into reserve pending scrapping, as the reason for their existence ended with the liberation of Belgium. In 1921, General Craufurd was scrapped.