Completed in 1929, Shropshire served with the RN until 1942, when she was transferred to the Royal Australian Navy (RAN) following the loss of sister ship HMAS Canberra.

[2] The torpedo tubes and depth charge throwers were stripped from the ship, and the entire Oerlikon outfit was replaced by fifteen single 40 mm Bofors guns.

[3] Shropshire was also present for the Spanish Civil War, and between 22 August and 16 September 1936, supported the evacuation of refugees from Barcelona.

[3] She remained in the Mediterranean (apart from returning to the United Kingdom for refits) until the outbreak of World War II in September 1939, at which point the cruiser was reassigned to the South Atlantic for trade protection patrols.

[5][6] The cruiser returned to Britain for a refit in early 1940, before proceeding to the Indian Ocean, where she was employed on convoy cover duties[3] between Cape Town-Durban-Mombassa and Aden.

[citation needed] She remained in the South Atlantic, undergoing a refit at Simon's Town between March and June 1941, then came home in October 1941 for a further major refit at Chatham between October 1941[citation needed] and March 1942 before returning to the South Atlantic until the end of the year, when she was recalled to Chatham prior to transfer to the RAN.

[7] However, around the same time, United States President Franklin Delano Roosevelt chose to commemorate the Australian warship's loss by renaming the under-construction Baltimore-class cruiser Pittsburgh as USS Canberra.

[8] The Australian government decided to retain Shropshire's old name after learning that the US offer had come directly from President Roosevelt.

[3] At the end of the month, she joined Task Force 74 at Brisbane, and supported the amphibious landings at Arawe and Cape Gloucester during December.

[3] In May, while operating in the Wakde-Sarmi-Biak area, a bomb was accidentally dropped by a United States aircraft between Shropshire and HMAS Warramunga.

[3] Although the bomb missed both ships and appeared to cause no damage, the cruiser's engines began to malfunction four days later, and Shropshire returned to Australia for repairs.

[3] The cruiser was involved in the Battle of Luzon during January 1945, during which she was attacked by two kamikaze aircraft: one narrowly missed, while the second was shot down by HMAS Gascoyne close enough for debris to hit Shropshire.

W. Ward of Sheffield, England, acting on behalf of the British Iron & Steel Corporation, on 16 July 1954, for £82,500 sterling.

[4] Breaking commenced in Dalmuir on 20 January 1955, with the ship's hull then transported to Troon, where scrapping resumed on 19 September.