HMS Pegasus was one of 11 Pelorus-class protected cruisers ordered for the Royal Navy in 1893 under the Spencer Program and based on the earlier Pearl class.

[3] In June 1902 she was in Gibraltar for a coronation fête,[4] and in September that year she visited the Aegean Sea with other ships of the station for combined manoeuvres near Nauplia.

In 1908, Pegasus rescued the crew of the wrecked French barque President Félix Faure, who had been stranded for sixty days on the Antipodes Islands.

As the likelihood of war with Germany increased, the commander of the Cape Station, Rear Admiral Herbert King-Hall, deployed his ships in order to counter the threat posed by the German light cruiser Königsberg, based at Dar es Salaam.

Pegasus's engines were shut down to allow the repairs, and outranged and outgunned, was incapacitated within eight minutes, and the captain – Commander Ingles[11] – struck the colours to avoid further bloodshed.