Warspite, ordered as one of a class of five "Queen Elizabeth" class battleships in the 1912 building programme, was completed and fitted for service by February 1916. Displacing 27,500 tons, she was the first to mount 15in. guns and steam at 24 knots using oil-fired boilers and was soon a firm favourite with her sailors and general public alike.

Being commissioned towards the end of the Great War, she saw action at Jutland before enjoying twenty years of peacetime service which included several large refits. During World War Two, she played key rôles at Narvik [1940] and more particularly the Battle of Matapan [1941] amonst many others. Badly damaged on several occasions, her last major operation was to assist the landings in the Scheldt in November 1944 and she was withdrawn from sea duty soon after the War ended. Despite a storm of public protest Warspite was sold for scrapping in July 1946. Whilst under tow to the breakers on 23rd April 1947 she ran aground at Prussia Cove, Cornwall; resisting all attempts to refloat her, she was abandoned and slowly dismantled insitu.