View source for Flower-class sloop

{{Short description|1915 class of Royal Navy sloops-of-war}}
{{more footnotes needed|date=January 2013}}
{{Use British English | date=September 2024}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=December 2024}}
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The '''Flower class''' comprised five sub-[[ship class|classes]] of [[sloop-of-war|sloops]] built under the Emergency War Programme for the [[Royal Navy]] during [[World War I]], all of which were named after various flowers. They were popularly known as the "herbaceous borders", in humorous reference to a well-known [https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Navy#Hoyt.27s_New_Cyclopedia_Of_Practical_Quotations_.281922.29 adage] about the Royal Navy ("Britain's best bulwarks are her wooden walls"), as well as to a type of [[Herbaceous border|garden arrangement]] popular in the United Kingdom.

==Fleet minesweepers==
The Flowers were designed to be built at merchant shipyards, to ease the pressure on yards specializing in warships. The initial three groups were the first purpose-built fleet [[minesweeper]]s, built with triple hulls at the [[Bow (ship)|bow]] to give extra protection against loss from [[Naval mine|mine]] damage when working. When [[submarine]] attacks on British merchant ships became a serious menace after 1916, the existing Flower-class minesweepers were transferred to [[Convoy|convoy escort duty]], and fitted with [[depth charge]]s, as well as [[QF 4.7 inch Gun Mk I–IV|4.7-inch naval guns]].

* {{sclass|Acacia|sloop|1}}: first group to be built, in 1915. 24 vessels built in two batches of 12. Two sunk during the war.
* {{sclass|Azalea|sloop|1}}: 12 vessels built in 1915. Slightly modified ''Acacia''s; one sunk during the war.
* {{sclass|Arabis|sloop|1}}: 36 vessels built 1915, a further eight for the [[French Navy]]. Five British, and one French vessel sunk.

''Gentian'' and ''Myrtle'' were both lost to mines in the [[Baltic Sea]] on 16 July 1919.<ref>[http://www.naval-history.net/WW1NavyBritishAdmiraltyEstimates1919.htm Admiralty Estimates for 1919] (appendix) accessed 25 October 2016</ref>

==Submarine decoys (warship-Qs)==
[[File:HMS Bryony (1917).jpg|thumb|HMS ''Bryony'' as a Q-ship]]
The latter two groups, the ''Aubrietia''s and ''Anchusa''s, were designed as submarine decoys, or [[Q-ship]]s, with hidden guns and a distinctive "merchant marine" appearance. These "warship-Qs" were thus the first purpose-built anti-submarine fighting ships, and their successor types were the [[sloop-of-war|anti-submarine sloops]] of [[World War II]], which evolved into the modern [[anti-submarine warfare]] [[frigate]] during the 1939–45 [[Battle of the Atlantic]].

* {{sclass|Aubrietia|sloop|1}}: 12 vessels built 1916; two sunk. 
* {{sclass|Anchusa|sloop|1}}: 28 vessels built 1917. Saw service as Q-ships; six sunk.

==Service==

Some 112 Flower-class vessel in total were built for the Royal Navy, and a further eight for the French ''Marine Militaire''. Of these, 17 British and one French Flowers were sunk.

Some members of the class served as patrol vessels throughout the world during the peacetime years between the wars, but almost all were disposed of by World War II. This allowed the majority of the class names to be revived for the new, smaller {{sclass2|Flower|corvette}}s.

==Survivors==
Two members of the final ''Anchusa'' group, {{HMS|Chrysanthemum|1917|2}} and [[HMS President (1918)|''Saxifrage'']] (renamed ''President'' in 1922), survived to be moored on the [[River Thames]] for use as drill ships by the [[RNVR]] until 1988, a total of seventy years in Royal Navy service. ''Chrysanthemum'' was sold to private owners and scrapped in 1995. ''President'' was sold and preserved, and is now one of the last three surviving warships of the Royal Navy built during the [[First World War]], (along with the 1914 [[light cruiser]] {{HMS|Caroline|1914|6}} in [[Belfast]], and the 1915 [[Monitor (warship)|monitor]] {{HMS|M33}} in [[HMNB Portsmouth|Portsmouth dockyard]]).

==References==
{{Reflist}}

== External links ==
{{Commons category-inline|Flower class sloop}}

{{Flower class sloop}}
{{WWI British ships}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Flower Class Sloop}}
[[Category:Flower-class sloops| ]]
[[Category:Ship classes of the Royal Navy]]
[[Category:Sloops of the Royal Navy]]
[[Category:Sloops of the United Kingdom]]