Origin
In 1908 the Lords of the Admiralty became alarmed at information reaching them which suggested that Germany, seen as the most likely opponent in any future naval conflict, was building dreadnoughts in secret in a bid to exceed the number operated by the Royal Navy. Agitation to accelerate the British dreadnought building programme was led by Admiral Fisher, the First Sea Lord at the time. There was considerable opposition to the proposal, led by Winston Churchill who was at that time President of the Board of Trade. This opposition was ultimately overruled, and Colossus and her sister ship HMS Hercules were approved for construction in the 1909 programme. She was launched on April 9, 1910 and completed and commissioned in July 1911.
Read more about this topic: HMS Colossus (1910)
Famous quotes containing the word origin:
“Good resolutions are useless attempts to interfere with scientific laws. Their origin is pure vanity. Their result is absolutely nil. They give us, now and then, some of those luxurious sterile emotions that have a certain charm for the weak.... They are simply cheques that men draw on a bank where they have no account.”
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)
“All good poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: it takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquillity.”
—William Wordsworth (1770–1850)
“Our theism is the purification of the human mind. Man can paint, or make, or think nothing but man. He believes that the great material elements had their origin from his thought.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)