HMS Dragon was a Doterel-class sloop of the Royal Navy, built at Devonport Dockyard and launched on 30 May 1878.

The Doterel class was designed by Nathaniel Barnaby as a development of William Henry White's 1874 Osprey-class sloop.

The graceful clipper bow of the Ospreys was replaced by a vertical stem and the engines were more powerful.

[1] All the ships of the class were provided with a barque rig,[1] that is, square-rigged foremast and mainmast, and fore-and-aft sails only on the mizzen mast.

[2] She took part in the Egyptian War in 1882 under the command of Edward Grey Hulton, landing a naval brigade at Suez.