Handy-class destroyer

Three Handy-class destroyers served with the Royal Navy. HMS Handy (1895), HMS Hart (1895) and HMS Hunter (1895) were all built by Fairfield.

Design and construction
As part of the 1893–1894 Naval Estimates, the British Admiralty placed orders for 36 torpedo-boat destroyers, all to be capable of 27 kn, as a follow-on to the six prototype "26-knotters" ordered in the previous 1892–1893 Estimates. Of the 36 destroyers, three ships (Handy, Hart and Hunter) were ordered from Fairfield Shipbuilding and Engineering Company of Govan, the first torpedo craft to be built by that shipyard. As typical for torpedo craft at the time, the Admiralty left detailed design to the builders, laying down only broad requirements.

Fairfield's design was 197 ft long overall and 194 ft between perpendiculars, with a beam of 19 ft and a draught of 7 ft. Displacement was 275 LT light and 310 LT full load, while the ship's complement was 53 officers and men. Three Thornycroft boilers fed steam at 215 psi to two 3-cylinder triple expansion steam engines rated at 4000 ihp and driving two propeller shafts. Two funnels were fitted. Armament consisted of a single QF 12 pounder 12 cwt gun and three 6-pounder guns, with two 18 inch (450 mm) torpedo tubes. As a gunboat, one of the torpedo tubes could be removed to accommodate a further two six-pounders.

In September 1913 the Admiralty re-classed all the surviving 27-knotter destroyers as A Class, although this only applied to Handy herself as the other two ships had already been sold for scrap in 1912.