HMS Tickler was a Royal Navy Gadfly-class flat-iron gunboat launched in 1879.

Tickler was launched on 15 September 1879 as the last of the Royal Navy Gadfly-class flat-iron gunboats.

She was listed at Portsmouth "for coastal defence" in 1881 and in 1885, during the Russian War Scare, she, Gadfly and Griper were towed to the Cape by the transports Richmond Hill and Kimberley.

When the South African Naval Service was created on 1 April 1922, all officers and men were nominally registered in the books of Afrikander.

[Note 1][2] She was returned to the Royal Navy in December 1932 and renamed HMS Afrikander II in 1933.