British Admirals of the Fleet

by T A Heathcote

  HAWKINS

  JAMES, see WHITSHED, Sir JAMES HAWKINS, [17]

  HAY

  The Right Honourable Lord JOHN, GCB (1827–1916) [46]

  Lord John Hay, the fourth son of the eighth Marquess of Tweeddale, a veteran of the Napoleonic wars and the American War of 1812, was born in Geneva, Switzerland, on 23 August 1827. Lord John’s uncle and namesake, Rear-Admiral the Right Honourable Lord John Hay (third son of the seventh marquess) also served in the Napoleonic wars, in which he lost an arm at the age of fifteen. He later served from 1846 to 1848 as a lord commissioner of the Admiralty. Lord John joined the Navy in 1840 and served in the First China War (1841–42) and subsequently in operations against pirates in Borneo. After passing for promotion to lieutenant and spending the required six years on the books of a naval ship, he was appointed mate on 2 December 1846 in the paddle sloop Spiteful, at Woolwich. He was promoted to lieutenant on 19 December 1846 and from April 1848 to 1850 was in the 2nd-rate Powerful in the Mediterranean. He then served for a few months as flag lieutenant to his uncle and namesake in the 1st-rate St George.

  Hay was promoted to commander on 28 April 1851 and returned to sea in August 1852 in command of the steam sloop Wasp. He joined the Mediterranean Fleet and, in 1853, as tension with Russia increased, was senior officer in a small flotilla sent to Constantinople (Istanbul) to show support for the Turkish government. During the Crimean War, he served in 1854 with the fleet in the Black Sea, where he was the first naval commanding officer to permit his ship’s company to wear beards and moustaches. He was promoted to captain on 27 November 1854 in recognition of his services with the naval brigade in the siege of Sevastopol. He was briefly appointed to the corvette Tribune and went onto half-pay during 1855, though continuing to serve with the naval brigade before Sevastopol and being commended for his zeal and gallantry. From December 1855 to the end of hostilities in 1856 he was in command of the steam mortar frigate Forth. He entered Parliament in 1857 as Liberal Member for Wick, Caithness, which he represented until 1859.

  Between 1859 and the end of 1862 Hay was in command of the paddle frigate Odin on the East Indies station. During the Second China War he led a flotilla of gunboats in operations against the Taku Forts at the mouth of the Pei-ho River, and was promoted to commodore during 1861. He returned to Parliament in 1866 as Member for Ripon, Yorkshire, which he continued to represent until 1871. From June to September 1866 he was fourth naval lord in the Board of Admiralty and returned there as third naval lord from 1868 to November 1871, when he was given command of the turret ship Hotspur. He was promoted to rear-admiral on 7 May 1872.

  Hay was appointed second-in-command of the Channel Squadron on 2 January 1875, with his flag successively in the armoured ships Northumberland and Black Prince. In 1876 he married Anne, youngest daughter of Nathaniel Lambert, MP, of Denham Court, Buckinghamshire. They later had two sons and two daughters, of whom one died in infancy. Their elder son became an officer in the Navy and their surviving daughter married Lord Aberdour, eldest son of 21st Earl of Morton. Between November 1877 and December 1879 Hay was senior officer in command of the Channel Squadron, with his flag in the armoured ship Minotaur, and promoted to vice-admiral on 31 December 1877. During the summer of 1878, while negotiations at the Congress of Berlin settled international tension over the Turkish Question, he was sent to the eastern Mediterranean without any clear orders as to his movements on arrival. He eventually learned that his mission was to occupy Cyprus, previously under Turkish rule, but about to be transferred to British control as part of the Berlin agreement. Hay took over the government of the island from its last Turkish governor-general and covered the landing of the British garrison in July 1878.

  After the return to power of the Liberals in April 1880 Hay became second naval lord and remained on the Board of Admiralty until appointed C-in-C, Mediterranean, with his flag in the battleship Alexandra, in February 1883. He was promoted to admiral on 8 July 1884 and received the thanks of Parliament for his fleet’s support to the Gordon Relief Expedition in the Sudan during 1884. After completing his tenure of the Mediterranean command, he became first naval lord in the Board of Admiralty headed by the Marquess of Ripon in Gladstone’s third Cabinet, in March 1886. He left the Admiralty when the Liberal ministry fell in August 1886, and was C-in-C, Plymouth, from May 1887 to 15 December 1888, when he was promoted to admiral of the fleet. He retired in August 1892 and died at Fulmer, Buckinghamshire, on 4 May 1916.

  HENRY (HEINRICH)

  ALBERT WILLIAM HENRY, HRH Prince Henry of Prussia,

  KG (1862–1929) [62]

  Prince Henry of Prussia, the second son of Frederick, Crown Prince of Prussia, and his wife Princess Victoria, eldest daughter of Queen Victoria, was born on 14 August 1862. Frederick died of cancer of the throat in June 1888, having reigned as German Emperor for nineteen days. The imperial crown then passed to Prince Henry’s elder brother Frederick William Victor Albert [47] who, as William II, became the third and last of the Hohenzollern German Emperors. While Crown Princess, Victoria encouraged her two elder sons to develop their interest in the sea, the element on which her native country (which she always preferred to Germany) was supreme. In 1874 the two princes went to school at Cassels, Hesse, where Queen Victoria sent her grandson Henry (who had determined on a naval career) numerous books about the sea, all of which were also eagerly read by his elder brother. In 1877 the two went to Kiel for Henry’s first night aboard ship as a naval cadet. Henry had difficulty with his hammock, lost his blanket and in the morning ate his captain’s breakfast by mistake. The Crown Princess always considered her second son rather plain-looking and not very bright. It was commonly believed that the decision to send him to the Modern School at Cassels, rather than the more academic Gymnasium attended by his brother, was because he lacked the necessary intellectual ability. It was officially given out that the more technical syllabus of the Modern School was better suited to a future naval officer. Henry always shared his elder brother’s enthusiasm for the Imperial German Navy, a new force founded with the German Empire in 1871 and officered largely by sons of the wealthy bourgeoisie that flourished with the economic growth of the new empire.

  In May 1888 Henry married Princess Irene Louise Maria Anna, the twenty-one year-old third daughter of Ludwig IV, Grand Duke of Hesse and bei-Rhine, and later had three sons, of whom the youngest died in infancy in 1904. In 1889, in the ship Valkyrie, Henry led a German naval squadron escorting his brother the Kaiser on an official visit to the Royal Regatta at Cowes, IOW. This was the first of several such visits, which served as useful occasions for informal diplomatic exchanges. In 1897 the Kaiser, in one of the public telegrams that played so large a part in his conduct of affairs, sent Prince Henry a message regretting that he had no better ship than the old Koenig Wilhelm in which to send him to Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee Review. He alarmed British opinion by adding that he would not rest until the German Navy was brought to the same high level as the German Army. Later that year Henry was given command of a squadron sent to occupy the territory of Kiao-Chow (Jiaozhou) ostensibly in retaliation for the murder of German missionaries by Chinese extremists, but actually to establish a German coaling station in the Far East

  Henry had become a rear-admiral in 1895. In 1899 he was promoted to vice-admiral commanding the East Asiatic cruiser squadron. On passage, he encountered a British fishery protection vessel and, when he did not receive the proper gun salute, sent a cruiser to investigate. The British commander’s explanation that he did not have a saluting cannon on board was deemed inadequate and a complaint was lodged through diplomatic channels. In 1901, with promotion to admiral, he was given command of a squadron of eight battleships, with which he paid a courtesy visit to the United Kingdom. From 1903 to 1906 he was chief of the Baltic station and from 1906 to 1909 commanded the new High Seas Fleet, with his flag in the battleship Deutschland. In an echo of a similar controversy over status in the Royal Navy at the same time, he decided that engineer of
ficers should wear the sash of executive officers, in recognition of their increasingly important role and rising social position. At the same time he was horrified at the thought of engineer officers’ wives being allowed to call on those of executive officers and ruled that they could only meet at social events held on board ship. During his command of the High Seas Fleet, he pressed for the enlargement of the Kiel canal and emphasized the importance of Wilhelmshaven and Heligoland as locations from which his fleet could make sorties against the British fleet or threaten the east coast of England.

  In 1909 Henry was promoted to grand admiral, the German equivalent to admiral of the fleet, and on 27 January 1910 was made an honorary admiral of the fleet in the Royal Navy. In 1910 he was appointed Inspector General of the Imperial German Navy. He took an interest in naval aviation and became the first German naval officer to qualify as an aviator. By 1912 he had come to the conclusion that Germany could no longer afford to build large capital ships and recommended that fast “torpedo-battleships” should be designed instead. On the approach of the First World War in 1914 Prince Henry was at Cowes Regatta, which he regularly attended. He waited upon his cousin, George V [64], whose vague expression of hope that the United Kingdom would be able to keep out of the conflict he interpreted as a statement of policy, which he relayed to his brother the Kaiser. This played a part in the latter’s feeling of betrayal by “Georgie” when the British subsequently entered the war.

  When hostilities began, Henry was given command of the Baltic Naval Forces. He remained there until December 1917, with little real action, but preparing plans for the occupation of the Danish and Norwegian coasts in the event of either country joining the war on the side of the Entente Powers. During 1917 calls for peace by socialist deputies in the Reichstag and increasing war-weariness among his men led him to encourage membership of the patriotic Fatherland Party, and to order his officers to eat the same food as their crews. A more successful morale-boosting operation was the capture of islands in the Gulf of Riga from a disaffected Russian fleet in October 1917. In January 1918 he again became Inspector General of the Navy. In October 1918, as the will of the German people to continue the war began to wane, Henry proposed another sortie, this time by the High Seas Fleet, with the Kaiser and himself sailing with it. This triggered a naval mutiny that began the collapse of the German Empire. On 5 November 1918, driving a lorry flying the red flag, he escaped from Kiel, complaining that the mutiny was the result of British “silver bullets” (secret payments to the mutineers). With the end of the war, Henry retired into private life. As inflation began to destroy the value of his savings, he supplemented his income by book-binding, a traditional craft of Hohenzollern princes, which he had long practised as a hobby. He died at his home, Herrenhaus Hemmelmark, near Eckenforde, on the Baltic coast of Schleswig, on 20 April 1929.

  HILL-NORTON

  Sir PETER JOHN, Baron Hill-Norton, GCB (1915- ) [107]

  Peter John Hill-Norton was born on 8 February 1915 and, after attending the Royal Naval College, Dartmouth, was appointed to the cruiser London, with promotion to midshipman on 1 May 1932. After joining the battleship Rodney in the Home Fleet in September 1934 for a brief tour in which he studied for his seamanship examinations, he became an acting sublieutenant on 1 May 1935 (confirmed on 1 September 1935 on the completion of his promotion courses). He then returned to the Home Fleet where he served in the battleship Ramillies from August 1936 to August 1938. In 1936 he married Margaret Eileen Linstow, with whom he later had a son (who became a vice-admiral) and a daughter. After qualifying at the gunnery school Excellent in 1939 Hill-Norton served during the Second World War successively as a gunnery officer with convoy escorts in the Arctic and the North-Western Approaches, a staff officer at the Admiralty and gunnery officer of the battleship Howe in the Far East. With the end of the war in 1945 he was appointed gunnery officer of the cruiser Nigeria in the South Atlantic Squadron. He was promoted to commander on 31 December 1947 and to captain on 31 December 1952. From 1953 to 1955 he was naval attaché in the British embassies to Uruguay, Paraguay and the Argentine Republic. He commanded the destroyer Decoy from 1956 to 1957 and then became head of the Weapon Equipment Section at the Admiralty and chairman of the Defence Policy Staff committee. In 1958 he suggested that the Weapon Equipment Section should be merged with the Tactical and Staff Duties Division and subsequently became Director of the new Tactical and Weapons Policy Division. He returned to sea to command the aircraft carrier Ark Royal from October 1959 to January 1962.

  11. Prince Louis of Battenberg [74] (later Marquess of Milford Haven) with his sons Dicky (left) (later Lord Louis Mountbatten) [102] and Georgie (later Earl of Medina).

  12. Sir Roger Keyes, Lord Keyes. [80]

  13. Sir William Boyle, Earl of Cork and Orrery. [87]

  14. Sir Dudley Pound. [89]

  15. Sir Andrew Cunningham, Viscount Cunningham of Hyndhope. [91]

  16. Sir James Somerville. [93]

  17. Lord Louis Mountbatten [102], 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma, with his Countess, Edwina, and their daughter Patricia, later 2nd Countess Mountbatten of Burma, a third officer, WRNS.

  18. Sir Julian Oswald [114] with Sub-Lieutenant (SSC) Victoria Heathcote RNR, the author’s daughter, and staff of TS Diadem, the Camberley and Farnborough Sea Cadet unit. (Barry Mitchell)

  Hill-Norton was promoted to rear-admiral on 8 January 1962 and became Assistant Chief of the Naval Staff at the Admiralty in February 1962. He was appointed Flag Officer, second-in-command, Far East Fleet, in June 1964, with his flag in the guided-missile destroyer Kent. He was promoted to vice-admiral on 7 August 1965. In 1966 he returned home to become Deputy Chief of the Defence Staff (Personnel and Logistics) in the Ministry of Defence. In this appointment he originated a new system of pay for all the Armed Services, the Military Salary. Under this system, the costs of quantifiable emoluments previously provided free of charge, such as rations and accommodation, were deducted from pay, but the actual rates of pay were increased to compensate for this, so allowing a direct comparison with wage rates in civil employment, where individuals paid for their food and housing as a matter of course. He was awarded the KCB in 1967 and was from January to August 1967 a member of the Admiralty Board as Second Sea Lord and Chief of Naval Personnel. From then until 1968 Sir Peter Hill-Norton was Vice-Chief of the Naval Staff, where he sought economies in the fleet support organization, leading to many civilian redundancies and large-scale reductions in the Royal Dockyards. He also proposed that the long-standing custom of the daily issue of rum and “grog” should be abolished, a reform eventually carried through in 1968. While VCNS, Hill-Norton devised the concept of a new class of light aircraft carriers designated as “through-deck cruisers” in order to evade the decision of Defence Secretary of the day, Denis Healey, that no more carriers were to be built. These ships were eventually commissioned as the Navy’s new carrier force and played a vital part in its subsequent operations. He was promoted to admiral on 1 October 1968.

  In March 1969 Hill-Norton became Joint Service C-in-C, Far East, before returning to the Ministry of Defence in July 1970 to become First Sea Lord in succession to Sir Michael Le Fanu [106]. Le Fanu, who had just discovered that he was suffering from leukaemia and had not long to live, warned Lord Carrington, Secretary of State for Defence in Edward Heath’s Cabinet, that he would not be able to become Chief of the Defence Staff as had been planned. Hill-Norton therefore accepted a shorter period than usual as First Sea Lord so as to become CDS in April 1971. He was promoted to admiral of the fleet on 12 March 1971 and served as CDS until April 1974. Between then and 1977 he was the Chairman of the Military Committee of NATO. In 1978 he was granted a life peerage as Baron Hill-Norton, of South Nutfield, Surrey. From 1977 to 1984 Lord Hill-Norton was President of the Sea Cadet Association. He continued to play a part in various maritime and City organizations and published several influential works on NATO and defence policy. He settled at Hyde, Fordingbridge, Hampshire, and remained an
active member of the House of Lords until his sight was badly affected in 1998.

  HOPE

  Sir JAMES, GCB (1808–1881) [39]

  James Hope was born on 3 March 1808, the son of a Trafalgar veteran, Captain (later Admiral) Sir George Hope, and his wife Lady Jemima Johnstone Hope, a daughter of the third Earl of Hopetoun. Between 1820 and 1822 he attended the Royal Naval College, Portsmouth, after which he served in the 5th-rate Forte in the West Indies and the 4th-rate Cambrian in the Mediterranean. He became a lieutenant on 9 March 1827 and was appointed to the 5th-rate Maidstone, under orders for the East Indies station, in September 1827. On his return home Hope became the flag lieutenant of the Earl of Northesk, C-in-C Portsmouth, in August 1829, and was promoted to commander on 26 February 1830. From July 1833 to 28 June 1838, when he was promoted to captain, he commanded the sloop Racer on the North America and West Indies station. In 1838 he married the Honourable Frederica Kinnaird, daughter of the eighth Lord Kinnaird, and settled in Linlithgow, where his mother’s family held extensive estates.