HMS Albatross was an experimental torpedo boat destroyer of the Royal Navy authorised under the 1896–97 Naval Estimates and built by John I. Thornycroft & Company of Chiswick on the River Thames.

She carried 105 tons of coal and had a range of 1,545 nautical miles (2,861 km) at a nominal speed of 11 knots (20 km/h; 13 mph).

The triple-expansion steam engine had reached its limitation, and therefore to generate more speed, it would require a change in technology.

She is reported in early January 1901 as being back in Home waters, as part of the Medway instructional flotilla.

[7] She was paid off at Chatham on 29 August 1901 for repairs to the machinery, and her crew transferred to the destroyer Chamois, which took its place in the Mediterranean Fleet.

[10] She saw several months of trials as tender to Pembroke, the shore establishment at Chatham,[11] before her departure for the Mediterranean in late May 1902,[12] arriving at Malta on 9 June.

[13] In September 1902 she visited the Aegean Sea with other ships of the station for combined manoeuvres near Nauplia,[14] and in early January 1903 there was a similar three-weeks cruise in the Greek islands around Corfu.

After 30 September 1913, she was known as a C-class destroyer and had the letter ‘C’ painted on the hull below the bridge area and on either the fore or aft funnel.