HMS Cornwall (1902)

Cornwall, in Esquimalt Harbour repairing damage received during the Battle of the Falkland Islands

Upon arrival at Port Stanley on 7 December 1914, Sturdee gave permission for Cornwall to put out her fires to clean her boilers and repair one engine. He planned to recoal the entire squadron the following day from the two available colliers and to begin the search for the East Asia Squadron the day after. Vice-Admiral Maximilian von Spee, commander of the German squadron, had other plans and intended to destroy the radio station at Port Stanley on the morning of 8 December. The appearance of two German ships at 07:30 caught Sturdee's ships by surprise although they were driven off by 12-inch (305 mm) shells fired by the predreadnought battleship Canopus when they came within range around 09:20. This gave time for Cornwall to reassemble her engine and raise steam, although she had not even started to recoal. The squadron cleared the harbour by 10:30 and Sturdee ordered, "general chase". His two battlecruisers were the fastest ships present and inexorably began to close on the German cruisers. They opened fire at 12:55 and began to straddle the light cruiser Leipzig, the rear ship in the German formation. It was clear to Spee that his ships could not outrun the battlecruisers and that the only hope for any of his ships to survive was to scatter. So he turned his two armoured cruisers around to buy time by engaging the battlecruisers and ordered his three light cruisers to disperse at 13:20.[17]

In accordance with Sturdee's plans, Cornwall, her sister ship, Kent, and the light cruiser Glasgow immediately set off in pursuit while the battlecruisers and the slow armoured cruiser Carnarvon dealt with the German armoured cruisers. At 14:45 Glasgow, the fastest of the British cruisers, was close enough to Leipzig to open fire and the two ships exchanged salvos and scoring the occasional hit. An hour later, the Germans scattered in different directions; Cornwall and Glasgow pursued Leipzig while Kent went after Nürnberg. Cornwall closed on the German ship at full speed, trusting to her armour to keep out the 105-millimetre (4.1 in) shells, while the unarmoured Glasgow manoeuvered at a distance. The range from Cornwall was 7,000 yards (6,400 m) at 18:00 and her shells set Leipzig on fire. Five minutes later, the German ship had ceased firing and the British ships closed to 5,000 yards (4,600 m) to see if she would surrender. One last gun fired and Leipzig did not strike her colours so the British fired several additional salvos at 19:25. The German captain had mustered his surviving crewmen on deck preparatory to abandoning ship, but the ship's flag could not be reached because it was surrounded by flames, and the British shells wrought havoc on the assembled crew. Leipzig fired two green flares at 20:12 and the British ships closed to within 500 yards (460 m) and lowered boats to rescue the Germans at 20:45. Their ship capsized at 21:32 but only a total of 18 men were rescued in the darkness. Leipzig had hit Cornwall 18 times, but she did not lose a single man.[18] The British ship rescued one officer and three ratings from Leipzig. Cornwall spent much of the rest of the month searching for the German ships that had not yet been captured or destroyed before departing for home on 3 January 1915.[12]

HMS Cornwall at the Royal Naval Dockyard in Bermuda circa 1918

She arrived at Devonport on 11 February 1915 and spent the next month and a half refitting there and in Avonmouth before departing for South Africa on 23 March. The ship arrived at Kibondo Island off the German East African coast on 27 April to blockade the light cruiser Königsberg in the Rufiji River.[12] Several weeks later Cornwall was called north to reinforce the British forces involved in the Dardanelles Campaign on 10 May.[19] By the end of the year, she was en route to the China Station.[12][20] The ship arrived at Singapore on 17 February 1916 and began a lengthy refit that lasted until 6 May. She then patrolled the area of the Dutch East Indies until returning to Singapore for the next several months. Cornwall departed for French Indochina on 21 July and the Governor-General of French Indochina visited the ship on 26 July while she was docked at Saigon. After her return to Singapore, she was inspected by the Commander-in-Chief of the China Station, Vice-Admiral William Grant, on 21 August. Cornwall resumed patrolling in the East Indies shortly afterwards and continued until Grant hoisted his flag aboard the ship on 22 October as he and his staff was ferried to Hong Kong. Upon arrival five days later, Grant lowered his flag as he transferred ashore. The ship patrolled off the Chinese coast for most of November and returned to Singapore on 11 December. Cornwall departed the city on 20 December bound for South Africa.[12] On 16 January 1917, the ship was escorting a convoy of six troopships when she narrowly missed encountering the German commerce raider SMS Wolf off Saldanha Bay.[21]

A few days after arriving in Freetown, Sierra Leone, on 29 January, Cornwall dismounted four of her 12-pounder guns; two of the guns were transferred to troopships in her convoy. She led the convoy back to sea on 2 February, bound for Devonport where they arrived on 17 February. The ship then sailed to Liverpool to begin a lengthy refit and was paid off there on 7 March. She recommissioned on 4 August and spent the next two weeks preparing to go back to sea. Cornwall departed Liverpool on 17 August and escorted at least one troopship to Halifax, Nova Scotia, arriving there a week later.[12] She was now assigned to the North Atlantic and West Indies Station[22] and began escorting convoys between North America and Britain on 19 September. Cornwall continued in this role for the next year and escorted her last convoy when she arrived in Bermuda on 18 October 1918. She departed the island on 14 December and arrived at Devonport eight days later. The ship resumed her prewar role as a cadet training ship on 25 January 1919. Vice-Admiral Morgan Singer, Commander-in-Chief, America and West Indies, inspected the ship on 9 May while she was berthed in Bermuda. Cornwall returned to Devonport on 31 July and was paid off on 21 August.[12] The ship was sold for scrap on 7 June 1920.[11] In 1922, Mount Cornwall in the Canadian Rockies was named in tribute to the ship.