British Admirals of the Fleet

by T A Heathcote

  BROCK

  Sir Osmond de Beauvoir, GCB, KCVO (1869–1947) [79]

  Osmond Brock, the eldest son and second child of a retired naval commander, was born at Plymouth on 5 January 1869 and joined the Navy as a cadet in the training ship Britannia in January 1882. He became a midshipman in the corvette Carysfort on 18 August 1884 and served in the Mediterranean Fleet, where he was lent to the barbette ship Téméraire. In March 1885 he joined the frigate Raleigh, flagship of the Cape of Good Hope and West Coast of Africa station and, while at the Cape, was awarded the certificate of the Royal Humane Society for rescuing a stoker from drowning. Brock joined the cruiser Active, in the Training Squadron, in November 1887 and became an acting sub-lieutenant at the beginning of his promotion courses on 14 August 1888. He was promoted to lieutenant on 14 February 1889 and appointed to the battleship Trafalgar, flagship of the second-in-command of the Mediterranean Fleet, in April 1890. After returning home in September 1891 he attended the gunnery training school Excellent at Portsmouth, where he qualified in 1894. Brock was appointed gunnery lieutenant in the battleship Devastation, port guardship at Devonport, in August 1894. From October 1894 to November 1895 he served in the new cruiser Cambrian, commanded by Captain Prince Louis of Battenberg [74] in the Mediterranean Fleet. He then became gunnery lieutenant of the battleship Ramillies, flagship of the Mediterranean Fleet, and left the ship on promotion to commander on 1 January 1900.

  Brock was appointed commander of the battleship Repulse in the Channel Squadron in January 1901. From August 1901 to May 1902 he was commander of the battleship Renown, flagship of the C-in-C Mediterranean Fleet, Sir John Fisher [58]. After a period on half-pay, he was given command of the despatch vessel Alacrity on the China station in January 1903, where he remained until promoted to captain on 1 January 1904. He was appointed captain of the Admiralty yacht Enchantress in May 1904 and returned to the Mediterranean in May 1905 as flag captain to the C-in-C, Lord Charles Beresford, in the battleship Bulwark. At the end of 1906 Brock moved to the Admiralty as one of the three Assistant Directors of Naval Intelligence. He returned to sea in March 1909 as flag captain to the Vice-Admiral commanding the Second Division of the Home Fleet, in the battleship King Edward VII. In August 1910 he was re-appointed to the Admiralty as one of the two Assistant Directors of Naval Mobilization. He was given command of the new battle-cruiser Princess Royal in August 1912, in the Battle-cruiser Squadron under Rear-Admiral David Beatty [69].

  After the outbreak of the First World War in August 1914 Brock served in Princess Royal at the battles of Heligoland Bight (28 August 1914) and the Dogger Bank (24 January 1915). While Lion was under repair after sustaining battle damage at the Dogger Bank, Beatty shifted his flag to Princess Royal, so that for a short while Brock was his flag captain. He was promoted to rear-admiral on 5 March 1915 and assumed command of the First Battle-cruiser Squadron with his flag in Princess Royal. At the battle of Jutland (31 May–1 June 1916), after Lion’s radio system was put out of action by German gunfire, Princess Royal became Beatty’s radio link with the rest of the fleet, repeating messages to and from the flagship by visual signals.

  Brock’s analytical mind and studious disposition made him a perfect complement to the dashing and impetuous Beatty, and the two formed a high opinion of each other’s abilities. When Beatty was appointed C-in-C, Grand Fleet, at the end of November 1916 he took Brock with him as his chief of staff, with the flag in the battleship Queen Elizabeth. In 1917, to Beatty’s disapproval, Brock married the green-eyed, red-haired Irene Catherine Francklin, widow of Captain Philip Francklin, lost with all hands in the armoured cruiser Good Hope at the battle of Coronel (1 November 1914). She came from a naval family and was the daughter of one admiral and granddaughter of another. With her second husband, she later had a daughter of her own. At the end of 1917 Brock was awarded the KCVO. He became an acting vice-admiral on 17 January 1918, while remaining Beatty’s chief of staff until the Grand Fleet dispersed in May 1919 after the end of the war.

  Sir Osmond Brock was promoted to vice-admiral on 3 October 1919, following his appointment as Fifth Sea Lord and Deputy Chief of the Naval Staff at the Admiralty, where he remained until the end of 1921. In April 1922 he became C-in-C, Mediterranean Fleet, flying his flag in the battleship Iron Duke with promotion to acting admiral in July 1922. In August 1922 the forces of a renascent Turkey routed the Greek army in Asia Minor and recovered the old Ottoman port of Smyrna (Izmir). Many of the Greek inhabitants were massacred. Others escaped with the departing Greek troops under the protection of Brock’s ships. The Turks pressed on to the neutral zone of the Dardanelles, held by a small British garrison at Chanak. The British Prime Minister, David Lloyd George, threatened war with Turkey, but gained little support at home or abroad, and was driven to resign office in October 1922. The Turks, correctly anticipating that the zone would be restored to them by international agreement, had already halted their advance. During the crisis Brock deployed his fleet to the Dardanelles, but was careful to avoid an armed clash, and was thanked in Parliament for his diplomatic conduct. He was given substantive promotion to admiral on 31 July 1924 and shifted his flag to the newly arrived battleship Queen Elizabeth. After handing over command of the Mediterranean Fleet in May 1925, he returned home to become C-in-C Portsmouth, where he served from 31 July 1926 to 29 April 1929. Sir Osmond Brock was promoted to admiral of the fleet on 31 July 1929 and retired on 31 July 1933. He died at Winchester on 14 October 1947.

  BURNEY

  Sir CECIL, 1st Baronet, GCB, KCMG (1858–1929) [72]

  Cecil Burney, second son of a naval captain, was born on 15 May 1858 at his mother’s family home in Jersey. He was educated at the Royal Naval Academy, Gosport (a private tutorial establishment or “crammer”) and joined the Navy in July 1871 as a cadet in the training ship Britannia at Portsmouth. He became a midshipman in October 1873 in the battleship Repulse, flagship of the Pacific station. Burney became a sub-lieutenant on 18 October 1877 at the beginning of his promotion courses and was appointed to the Indian troopship Serapis on 6 January 1879. He subsequently served from June to August 1879 as a sub-lieutenant in the royal yacht Victoria and Albert. He was promoted to lieutenant on 30 August 1879 and appointed to the corvette Carysfort, in the Mediterranean Fleet, in September 1880.

  At the beginning of the British campaign in Egypt in 1882 Burney landed in command of a Gatling gun section as part of a naval brigade. When the British advanced inland from the Suez Canal he accompanied the army with his guns drawn by mules, and brought them into action on the British flank at Tel-el-Mahuta (24 August 1882). He was with the naval brigade at the battle of Kassassin (28 August 1882) and subsequently joined an expedition against a group of Arabs who had murdered a party of British explorers. Burney also served in the Eastern Sudan campaign of February–March 1884, against the Mahdist forces threatening the Red Sea port of Suakin. He returned to Portsmouth in September 1884, to join the gunnery training ship Excellent. In the same year he married Lucinda Burnett, daughter of a London gentleman. They later had a family of two daughters and a son, who became a commander in the Navy.

  After qualifying as a gunnery officer, Burney was appointed to the gunnery training ship Cambridge at Devonport in June 1886 as one of her two junior staff officers. He subsequently joined the North America and West Indies station, where he served as a gunnery lieutenant successively of the flagship, the battleship Bellerophon, from August 1887 to April 1889, and then of the cruiser Comus until 1891. He was gunnery officer of the armoured cruiser Immortalité in the Channel Squadron from 1 January 1892 to 1 January 1893, when he was promoted to commander.

  From May 1893 until the end of 1895 Burney was commander of the cruiser Hawke in the Mediterranean Fleet. He became the commanding officer of the boys’ training establishment at Portland in January 1896, where he was promoted to captain on 1 January 1898. After leaving Portland in 1900 he briefly commanded Hawke on manoeuvres. On 8 August 1900 he became captain of the cruiser Sappho,
initially on the South Coast of America station, but detached during 1902 to the Cape of Good Hope station in the closing stage of the Anglo-Boer South African War. There Sappho struck the harbour bar at Durban, Natal, and was forced to return to the United Kingdom for repair. As the vessel had been under the supervision of a local pilot at the material time, Burney was exonerated from blame and in September 1902 was given command of the battleship Empress of India, flagship of the second-in-command of the Channel Squadron. In June 1904 he was appointed captain of the battleship Triumph in the Home Fleet and in July 1905 joined the training establishment Impregnable, at Devonport, as inspecting captain of all boys’ training ships. He remained there until his promotion to rear-admiral on 10 October 1907.

  In February 1911 Burney was given command of the Fifth Cruiser Squadron, in the Atlantic Fleet, flying his flag in the armoured cruiser Good Hope. He was promoted to command the Atlantic Fleet, as acting vice-admiral, with his flag in the battleship Prince of Wales, on 20 September 1911. In April 1912 this fleet became the Third Squadron of the Home Fleet, with Burney remaining in command but shifting his flag to the battleship King Edward VII. He was confirmed as vice-admiral on 20 September 1912, followed by the award of the KCB. In 1913 a renewed war in the Balkans resulted in the capture by Montenegro of the Turkish fortress of Scutari (Shkodar) in Albania. The Great Powers, in the interests of European peace, agreed that this region should be handed over to the newly-independent kingdom (former Turkish province) of Albania. Measures taken to enforce this collective decision included the despatch of a multi-national naval squadron to blockade the Montenegrin port of Antivari (Bar) on the Adriatic coast. Sir Cecil Burney, with temporary appointment as second-in-command of the Mediterranean Fleet and flying his flag in the light cruiser Dublin, commanded this squadron during the blockade (April-May 1913). He then commanded the multi-national peace-keeping force that occupied Scutari from April to November 1913. Burney’s austere character, personal integrity and impressive physique (he had, earlier in his career, been noted for his strength and for his boxing skill) proved valuable in dealing both with local Balkan warlords and the various national contingents under his command, while arrangements were made for the Albanians to take over the Scutari area.

  Burney returned home to become Vice-Admiral commanding the Second and Third Fleets in December 1913, with his flag successively in the battleships Queen and (after July 1914) Lord Nelson. On the outbreak of the First World War in August 1914 his command mobilized to form the Channel Fleet, responsible for protecting the coasts of southern England and ensuring the safe passage of the British Expeditionary Force to France. In December 1914 he became second-in-command of the Grand Fleet with his flag in the battleship Marlborough. At the battle of Jutland (31 May–1 June 1916) Marlborough was the first ship of the main battle fleet to engage the Germans. She was later torpedoed and forced to return to base, with Burney’s flag transferred to the battleship Revenge.

  Burney was promoted to admiral on 9 June 1916. He remained under the command of Sir John Jellicoe [68] in the Grand Fleet until November 1916, when both went to the Admiralty, as First and Second Sea Lords respectively. Burney left the Admiralty to become C-in-C, Coast of Scotland, on 13 October 1917 and remained there until 30 March 1919, when he was appointed C-in-C, Portsmouth. At the end of April 1920 he was relieved on medical grounds at his own request. He was promoted to admiral of the fleet on 20 November 1920 and was made a baronet in January 1921. Sir Cecil Burney retired in 1925. He died at his home, Upton House, near Poole, Dorset, on 5 June 1929 and was succeeded in his baronetcy by his son.

  CALLAGHAN

  Sir GEORGE ASTLEY, GCB, GCVO (1852–1920) [67]

  George Callaghan, the third son of a magistrate of Lotabeg, County Cork, was born in London on 21 December 1852 and entered the Navy as a cadet in the training ship Britannia in January 1866. He became a midshipman on 15 October 1867, in the paddle despatch vessel Liffey, then under construction at Liverpool. In October 1870 he was appointed to the corvette Wolverene on the East Indies station, where he was promoted to acting sub-lieutenant on April 1872. After leaving this ship in 1874, he remained ashore with promotion to lieutenant on 15 April 1875. Callaghan married in 1876 Edith Grosvenor, daughter of the Rector of Dunkerton, Somerset, and later had with her a family of a son and three daughters. He returned to the East Indies in June 1877 in the corvette Ruby, where he earned a commendation from the Admiralty for saving the lives of seamen whose boat had capsized in the Irrawaddy River, Burma (Myanmar). From 1880 to 1885 he was at the gunnery school Excellent, first as a student and then, after qualifying as a gunnery officer, on the staff.

  Callaghan was again appointed to Ruby in 1885 and served in her, as first lieutenant, on the South East Coast of America until his promotion to commander on 31 December 1887. In 1888 he became commander of the battleship Bellerophon, flagship on the North America station, where he remained until the ship returned to the United Kingdom in 1892. He was then given command of the despatch vessel Alacrity, yacht of the C-in-C, China station, in which he served until promoted to captain on 1 January 1894.

  Between 1894 and 1897 Callaghan was naval adviser to the Inspector-General of fortifications at the War Office. He then became captain of the cruiser Hermione in the Channel before going in this ship to the China station, where in 1899 he was given command of the cruiser Endymion. During the Boxer Rebellion of 1900 he was mentioned in despatches and decorated for his command of a naval brigade in the Allied force that relieved the diplomatic legations at Peking (Beijing). After his return to the United Kingdom Callaghan commanded the cruiser Edgar in the exercises of 1901 before going to the Mediterranean, where he commanded the battleship Caesar from December 1901 to March 1903. During 1904 he was the captain of Portsmouth Dockyard. Between 1904 and 1905 he was again in the Mediterranean, in command of the battleship Prince of Wales. He was promoted to rear-admiral on 1 July 1905 and in 1906 was appointed to the Channel Fleet, with his flag in the battleship Illustrious. In 1907 he was given command of the Fifth Cruiser Squadron, with his flag successively in the cruisers Leviathan and Shannon. Callaghan became second-in-command of the Mediterranean Fleet, with his flag in the battleship Duncan, in 1908. He was awarded the KCVO in 1909 and was made a grand officer of the order of the Crown of Italy for his part in the fleet’s aid to the survivors of an earthquake disaster at Messina, Sicily.

  Sir George Callaghan was promoted to vice-admiral on 27 April 1910 and became second-in-command of the Home Fleet, with his flag in the battleship King Edward VII. In November 1911 he was appointed C-in-C, Home Fleet, with acting rank as admiral (confirmed on 17 May 1913). He held this post, with his flag successively in the battleships Neptune, Hercules and Iron Duke, during a period of increasing international tension and growing British concern at the emergence of the German Navy as a threat to British naval supremacy. In December 1913 he was notified that his tenure of command would be extended to October 1914.

  On the outbreak of the First World War in August 1914 Callaghan sailed with his fleet to its war station at Scapa Flow, Orkney. His newly-appointed second-in-command, Sir John Jellicoe [68], joined him there with sealed orders requiring Callaghan to hand over command to him. Jellicoe had already been designated to succeed Callaghan when his tenure expired, but this abrupt change (arranged by the First Lord of the Admiralty, Winston Churchill, and his confidant, Prince Louis of Battenberg [74], the First Sea Lord) shocked the fleet and caused Jellicoe himself to protest. Callaghan himself accepted with great dignity the decision that he was not to command his fleet in the war for which he had trained it. He joined the Admiralty as an adviser and, together with Sir Hedworth Meux [66], conducted the enquiry into the failure of Rear-Admiral Troubridge to engage the German battle-cruiser Goeben before she escaped into Turkish waters in August 1914. They found Troubridge’s decision “deplorable and contrary to the tradition of the British Navy”, though a court-martial later found (to the chagrin of Churchill and Battenberg) that he h
ad acted in accordance with the orders he had been given by the Admiralty. Callaghan became C-in-C, Nore, in January 1915. He remained there, with promotion to admiral of the fleet on 2 April 1917, until March 1918. Sir George Callaghan died in London on 23 November 1920 and was buried in Westminster Abbey.

  CALTHORPE

  SOMERSET ARTHUR GOUGH, see GOUGH-CALTHORPE

  [76]

  CHATFIELD

  Sir ALFRED ERNLE MONTACUTE, 1st Baron Chatfield,

  GCB, OM, KCMG, CVO (1873–1967) [83]

  Alfred Chatfield, the fourth child and only son of a naval captain (later admiral), was born in Southsea, Hampshire, on 27 September 1873. He was educated at St Andrew’s School, Tenby, where his father had become superintendent of the nearby Pembroke Dockyard, and in 1886 joined the Navy as a cadet in the training ship Britannia at Portsmouth. After a brief period in the battleship Iron Duke he joined the corvette Cleopatra as a midshipman in November 1888. On Christmas Eve 1888, off Ushant, the square-rigged ship was taken aback by a heavy squall and only saved from total loss when cliphooks of an unauthorized pattern (fitted so that the ship would be able to carry out sail drill faster than her consorts) gave way under the strain. After reaching the South America station Chatfield was transferred to the cruiser Warspite, flagship of the C-in-C, Pacific, who was an old friend of his father and a distant cousin of his mother. The flag captain, the Honourable Hedworth Lambton, later Sir Hedworth Meux [66], encouraged him in his promotion studies and he became a sub-lieutenant on 27 September 1892. After returning home at the end of 1892 (when his mother, who had not seen him for four years, embraced his travelling companion by mistake), Chatfield passed his promotion courses and became a lieutenant on 27 March 1894. He was appointed in May 1894 to the battleship Royal Sovereign, flagship of the Channel Fleet. In September 1895 he joined the gunnery school Excellent at Portsmouth, from where, after qualifying, he joined the staff of gunnery school Cambridge at Devonport in August 1897.