HMS Witherington was an Admiralty modified W-class destroyer built for the Royal Navy.

[1] The City of Durham adopted HMS Witherington following a successful Warship Week National Savings campaign in February 1942.

[1] Witherington's keel was laid on 27 September 1918 at the James Samuel White & Co. Ltd. Shipyard in Cowes, Isle of Wight.

[2] She was propelled by three White-Foster type water tube boilers powering Curtis-Brown geared steam turbines developing 27,000 SHP driving two screws for a maximum designed speed of 34 knots.

[1] In the early 1930s she underwent a refit and was laid-up in Maintenance Reserve at Rosyth as more modern destroyers came into service.

[1] In September 1939 the ship was allocated to the 15th Destroyer Flotilla based at Rosyth (changed to Liverpool in 1940) in Western Approaches Command for convoy defence.

Up to April 1940 she was employed in the North West Approaches area providing local escort for convoys leaving Liverpool (OB series) to a dispersal point in the Atlantic approximately 750 nautical miles west of Lands End.

In June she escorted Group 1 (named Hebrew) of the evacuation of Norway from Scapa to the Clyde.

[4] On 11 March 1941, she was beached in Portsmouth after sustaining damage from a Luftwaffe air raid, to be later repaired and returned to service.

To augment the earlier changes, the replacement of the after bank of torpedo tubes with a single QF 12 pounder 12 cwt naval gun and the landing of 'Y' gun for additional space for depth charge gear and stowage, a Type 271 centimetric target indication radar was added on the bridge and a Type 286P air warning radar was installed on the main mast.

[7] At the end of June 1943 she was transferred to the Mediterranean-based out of Alexandria in support of follow on convoys for the Allied invasion of Sicily.

The bell, along with a plaque displaying the ship's crest, were mounted in the City Council Chambers.