Contemporaneous with the _Drakes_, and extending over four ships in the Estimates of 1898–99 to two in the following and four in the year later, ten armoured cruisers were provided for, which in essence were little but an attempt to provide a normal second-class protected cruiser of the _Talbot_ class, with armour protection. These ships--the _County_ class--are of 9,800 tons displacement, and may also be regarded as diminutives of the _Drake_ and _Cressy_ classes, with a touch of the _Diadems_ thrown in. In place of the fore and aft 9.2’s of the _Drake_ and _Cressy_, they were supplied with a couple of pairs of 6-inch guns mounted in turrets fore and aft. The belt amidships was reduced to 4in. (a thickness in K.C. which has no virtues over armour of earlier type) with the usual extension of 2in. to the bow. The twin turrets, in which, like those of the _Powerful_, electrical control was once more introduced, have never given satisfaction, being very cramped for working purposes, and probably no more efficient than single gun turrets would have been, certainly less than the single gun 7--5in. turrets, originally proposed as an alternative, would have been. Had the ships been regarded frankly as modern variants of the second-class protected cruisers, they probably would have been esteemed more than they were. Unfortunately they have always been regarded as “armoured ships” and discounted on account of their obvious inferiority to the _Drakes_. In the matter of steaming all of them have invariably done well (except in the case of the _Essex_, over which a mistake in design was made). The anticipated twenty-three knots was made quite easily, once certain early propeller difficulties were overcome. The Boiler Commission, already referred to, affected these ships, in so far that, instead of the hitherto inevitable Bellevilles, the _Berwick_ and _Suffolk_ were given Niclausse boilers and the _Cornwall_ Babcocks. The total weight of armour is 1,800 tons. Details of the construction of this class are:-- ==============+===========+==============+============== Name. | Laid down.| Built at. | Engines by. --------------+-----------+------------- +-------------- _Essex_ | Jan. ’00 | Pembroke | Clydebank _Kent_ | Feb. ’00 | Portsmouth | Hawthorn _Bedford_ | Feb. ’00 | Fairfield | Fairfield _Monmouth_ | Aug. ’99 | L. & Glasgow | L. & Glasgow _Lancaster_ | Mar. ’01 | Elswick | Hawthorn L. _Berwick_ | April, ’01| Beardmore | Humphrys _Donegal_ | Feb. ’01 | Fairfield | Fairfield _Cornwall_ | Mar. ’01 | Pembroke | Hawthorn _Cumberland_ | Feb. ’01 | L. & Glasgow | L. & Glasgow _Suffolk_ | Mar. ’02 | Portsmouth | Humphrys & T. ==============+===========+==============+============== All were completed during 1903 and 1904.