Ordered under the Naval Defence Act of 1889, which established the "Two-Power Standard", the class was contemporary with the first torpedo boat destroyers. With a length overall of 262feet,[2] a beam of 30feet[2] and a displacement of 1,070 tons,[2] these torpedo gunboats were not small ships by the standard of the time; they were larger than the majority of World War I destroyers. Harrier was engined by Hawthorn Leslie and Company with two sets of vertical triple-expansion steam engines, two locomotive-type boilers, and twin screws. This layout produced 3500ihp,[2] giving her a speed of 18.2kn.[2] She carried between 100 and 160 tons of coal and was manned by 120 sailors and officers.[2]
The armament when built comprised two QF 4.7inches guns, four 6-pdr guns and a single 5-barrelled Nordenfelt machine gun. Her primary weapon was five 18-inch (450-mm) torpedo tubes,[3] with two reloads.[2] On conversion to a minesweeper in 1914 two of the five torpedoes were removed.[2]
Harriers first commission was spent on the Mediterranean Station. She deployed to Crete in February 1897 to operate as part of the International Squadron, a multinational force made up of ships of the Austro-Hungarian Navy, French Navy, Imperial German Navy, Italian Royal Navy (Regia Marina), Imperial Russian Navy, and Royal Navy that intervened in the 1897-1898 Greek uprising on Crete against rule by the Ottoman Empire. On 21 February 1897, she joined the British battleship and torpedo gunboat, the Russian battleship, the Austro-Hungarian armored cruiser, and the German protected cruiser in the International Squadron's first direct offensive action, a brief bombardment of Cretan insurgent positions on the heights east of Canea (now Chania) after the insurgents refused the squadron′s order to take down a Greek flag they had raised.[4] [5]
Lieutenant Commander Philip Walter was appointed in command in July 1897. She left Port Said for Malta on 8 February 1900,[6] arrived at Plymouth on 1 March,[7] and on 24 March 1900 paid off at Devonport,[8] where she was placed in the B division of the Fleet Reserve. Commander Cyril Everard Tower was appointed in command on 11 March 1901, following which she again returned to the Mediterranean Station,[9] and in late November 1901 replaced the Melita as the special service vessel at Constantinople.[10] She visited the Danube in early 1902, and was ordered to the Persian Gulf on special service in June that year.[11] After a brief visit to the Mediterranean in September for combined manoeuvres off Nauplia,[12] she was back in the Gulf visiting Aden and Perim the following month,[13] then Hodeida in December.[14]
She spent some time before World War I engaged in fishery protection duties and was for a time a tender to the Navigation School.[8]
At the outbreak of war she was converted at Portsmouth, in common with most of the rest of her class, to the minesweeping role.[8]
She was sold to T R Sales at Haulbowline, Cork on 23 February 1920[2] for commercial use.[15]