British Admirals of the Fleet
Page 20
Hope returned to sea in December 1844, in command of a paddle steamer, the frigate Firebrand, on the South America station. There, at a time of civil war in Uruguay, he took part in the battle of Punto Obligado (20 November 1845) where the local British and French admirals combined their forces to break the blockade of Montevideo by an Argentine fleet. Hope went forward under heavy fire in his gig to supervise the cutting of a chain across the Parana River, for which he was mentioned in despatches. After returning home he remained ashore until the outbreak of the Crimean War in 1854, in which he commanded the 2nd-rate Majestic in the Baltic campaign.
Hope became a rear-admiral on 19 November 1857 and was appointed C-in-C, China, in March 1859, with his flag in the frigate Chesapeake. Hostilities in the Second China War had been suspended following the treaty of Tientsin (Tienjin) in June 1858, but the Chinese refused to allow the British and French ministers to proceed to the capital at Peking (Beijing). The Allies determined to clear a way up the Peiho River by force and Hope led an attack on the Taku Forts at the mouth of the river (25 June 1859). After having had the gunboats Plover and Cormorant sunk under him, suffering heavy casualties among his landing parties and being badly wounded in the thigh, he was forced to abandon the operation. Commodore Josiah Tattnall, United States Navy, although his squadron was officially neutral in this encounter, sent a steamer to help the British escape, famously remarking “Blood is thicker than water”. A few years later he placed his sword at the disposal of his native state, Georgia, and became one of the Confederacy’s senior naval officers during the American Civil War. Lord Elgin, the British minister, wrote that Hope had behaved like a madman in launching this attack, but would escape blame as he was an admiral. Nevertheless, Hope, a tall and imposing figure, was much respected in his own Service and in August 1860 covered the disembarkation of the Allied troops who took the Taku Forts from the landward side. In November 1860, after the war had ended with the Allied occupation of Peking (Beijing), he was awarded the KCB.
Sir James Hope remained in China and in February 1862 was wounded by a musket ball while co-operating with the Imperial Chinese army against the Taiping rebels. After returning home at the end of 1862, he served as C-in-C, North America and the West Indies, from late 1863 to early 1867, with promotion to vice-admiral on 16 September 1864, at a period of international tension between the United Kingdom and United States during the American Civil War. Between 1869 and 1872 he was C-in-C, Portsmouth, with promotion to admiral on 21 January 1870. He retired in March 1878 and became an admiral of the fleet on the retired list on 15 June 1879. Hope married again after the death of his wife in 1856, but had no children. He died at his home, Camden House, Linlithgow, on 9 June 1881.
HORNBY
Sir GEOFFREY THOMAS PHIPPS, GCB (1825–1895) [45]
Geoffrey Hornby, second son of Captain (later Admiral Sir) Phipps Hornby and grandson of the rector of Winwick, Cheshire, was born at Winwick on 20 February 1825. This living was in the gift of the Stanleys, the Earls of Derby, and had previously been held by Geoffrey Hornby’s greatgrandfather, a brother-in-law of the twelfth Earl of Derby. Geoffrey Hornby’s mother Maria, a daughter of General John Burgoyne (the “Gentleman Johnny” who had been defeated in the American War of Independence) lived with the Stanley family from her father’s death in 1792 until her marriage to Captain Phipps Hornby. In 1832, a year after Edward Stanley (later fourteenth Earl of Derby) had become a minister in Earl Grey’s Cabinet, Captain Hornby was appointed superintendent of the naval hospital and victualling yard, Plymouth. Geoffrey Hornby attended Southwood’s School, Plymouth, and developed an interest in ships and the sea. He entered the Navy on 8 March 1837 as a first class volunteer in the 1st-rate Princess Charlotte, flagship of his father’s friend Sir Robert Stopford in the Mediterranean Fleet.
Hornby served in the Mediterranean until the summer of 1841. This period included the international crisis of 1839–40, when there was a threat of war between France (supporting the Albanian ruler of Egypt and Syria, Mehemet Ali) and an alliance of the United Kingdom, Russia, Prussia and Austria (supporting his nominal overlord, the Sultan of Turkey). The appearance of a combined British, Austrian and Turkish fleet off Beirut, Syria, in August 1840 led to a successful rising against Mehemet Ali’s rule. Hornby was present at the naval bombardment and capture of Acre, Palestine (Akko, Israel) (2 November 1840). In the spring of August 1842 he was appointed a midshipman in the 4th-rate Winchester, flagship of the C-in-C, Cape of Good Hope.
Hornby became mate (from 15 June 1845, lieutenant) in the frigate Cleopatra, in which he served on anti-slaving operations on the coast of East Africa. These activities included boat actions in creeks and shallows, and the capture of two slave-ships, with Hornby being sent back to the Cape in charge of one of them. He returned home in the sloop Wolverine in 1847 and, on the death of his elder brother in 1848, added the name Phipps to his own in acknowledgement of having become the heir to Littlegreen, a Hampshire estate left to his father by the latter’s godfather, Thomas Phipps, Esquire.
From 1848 to 1850 Hornby was flag lieutenant to his father as C-in-C, Pacific, in the 2nd-rate Asia, based at Valparaiso, Chile. On 19 February 1850, when the commander of Asia was promoted out of the ship, Hornby was given the consequential vacancy. In 1851 he returned home and joined his contemporary Lord Stanley (later fifteenth Earl of Derby) for a tour of India, only to be invalided home after reaching Ceylon (Sri Lanka). In February 1852 Admiral Hornby, with a view to improving his son’s prospects, accepted a seat on the Board of Admiralty under the Duke of Northumberland in the Cabinet headed by the fourteenth Earl of Derby. When Derby’s first administration fell in December 1852 Northumberland allotted to Hornby one of the two promotions customarily at the disposal of First Lords on leaving office. Hornby accordingly became a captain on 18 December 1852. Admiral Sir Thomas Hornby had resigned from the Board with the other Derby partisans, so that, without a patron, his son was not given a ship during the Crimean War of 1854–56. When the admiral inherited the family home at Winwick, Hornby took over the Littlegreen estate and lived as a country gentleman at Lordington. In 1853 he married Emily, daughter of the Reverend J J Coles, of Ditcham Park, Hampshire. They later had four children, of whom their second son won the Victoria Cross as a major in the Royal Artillery in the Anglo-Boer South African War.
When the Earl of Derby returned to office as Prime Minister in February 1858 Hornby asked Lord Stanley (at this time in his father’s Cabinet as Colonial Secretary) to use his influence to find him a ship. He was given command of the corvette Tribune on the China station, where he arrived in October 1858 to find the ship overcrowded with marines and stores intended for the Second China War, but with rotten masts, bad rigging, and a crew untrained in the use of sails. Tribune played no part in the war and sailed for the Pacific station to meet the possibility of a landing by United States troops on the disputed San Juan Islands, between Vancouver and the northern Oregon (the modern state of Washington). Given full responsibility by the colonial governor of Victoria (British Columbia), Hornby avoided coming into conflict with the Americans (whose claim to the islands was later agreed) and was praised for his diplomatic conduct. He returned home at the end of June 1860. Derby’s government had fallen in February 1859, but Hornby’s reputation was by this time high enough for him to be appointed in February 1861 to the converted 1st-rate Neptune in the Mediterranean, where he served until the end of 1862. He was then appointed flag captain to the C-in-C, Channel Squadron, in the 2nd-rate Edgar. In January 1864 the squadron shadowed the Austro-Hungarian fleet on its way to assist Prussia in the war with Denmark over the Schleswig-Holstein question. Lord Palmerston, Derby’s successor as Prime Minister, had encouraged the Danes to count on British support, but, without a Continental ally, the most that he could give was a promise to sink the Austro-Hungarian ships if they bombarded Copenhagen. The Prussian Chancellor, Otto von Bismarck, indicated his opinion of the British Army by stating that, if it landed on his coast, he
would send the police to arrest it. Meanwhile, Hornby remained close to Derby’s party and primed Stanley with awkward questions about warship design to put to the ministers in the House of Commons.
In the spring of 1865 Hornby was appointed commodore and C-in-C on the West Coast of Africa, with his broad pendant successively in the 2nd-rate Formidable and the frigate Bristol. He argued against continuing the close blockade of the coast against slavers, on the grounds that the cost of keeping fourteen ships in an area where crews suffered many losses from fever was no longer justified. He condemned the independent rulers of West Africa for continuing to supply slaves as, since the American Civil War, the only civilized country not to have abolished the institution of slavery was Brazil. He shifted his broad pendant to the sloop Greyhound while Bristol was sent back to the United Kingdom for engine repairs in 1866–67, and was relieved at his own request in November 1867. Hornby was promoted to rear-admiral on 1 January 1869 and given command of the Flying Squadron, consisting of four frigates and two corvettes, with his flag in the frigate Liverpool. This circumnavigated the globe between 1869 and 1870 (losing 200 men on the way by desertion to the Australian gold-fields) with the aim of training its officers and ratings in seamanship under sail and demonstrating the Navy’s capacity to send a force into any waters. On returning home, Hornby was presented with the last surviving sheep of the fresh rations. It had become a pet of his crew, who begged for its life, so that it went with him to live in retirement at Lordington. From August 1871 to April 1874 he was C-in-C, Channel fleet, with his flag in the battleship Minotaur, where his duties included the entertainment at Gibraltar of General Ulysses S Grant, making his famous world tour after serving as President of the United States.
Hornby became second naval lord at the Admiralty, with promotion to vice-admiral, on 1 January 1875. He pressed for the funds to replace obsolete ships, only to find that the Ministers preferred economy to efficiency. At a time of increasing tension between the United Kingdom and Russia over the Turkish Question, he left the Admiralty in January 1877 to become C-in-C, Mediterranean Fleet, with his flag in the battleship Alexandra. The despatch of the Mediterranean Fleet to Constantinople (Istanbul) in February 1878 was matched by the arrival of a Russian army at the gates of the city. Hornby played his part in crisis management by sending only four of his battleships all the way to Constantinople and anchoring there short of the city limits. He had a personal audience with the Sultan, explaining to him the limits of British policy and, in the process, formed the view that it would be better for everyone if the British took over the Ottoman Empire as they had the Mughal Empire in India.
In June 1878 he was joined by Lord John Hay [46] who had been sent to the Mediterranean by the Cabinet to take the Turkish-ruled island of Cyprus under British control. Hornby privately deplored the British occupation of Cyprus, on the grounds that it would look like sharing with other robbers the spoils of Russia’s recent campaign. He also felt that the arrangements for the future of the Turkish province of Rumelia (southern Bulgaria) would only inflict on its Muslim inhabitants the mass murders, rapes and looting that they themselves had inflicted on the Bulgarians, and saw nothing to choose between either side. He was nevertheless awarded the KCB in appreciation of the close discipline he had exercised over his fleet during the crisis and for his diplomacy in dealing with the Russians.
Sir Geoffrey Hornby (“Uncle Geoff” to his fleet) returned to his base at Malta in April 1879 and was promoted to admiral on 15 June 1879. He was much respected for his seamanship and for his operational skill in fleet exercises, and Captain John Fisher [58], who served under him at this time, later described him as the finest admiral afloat since Nelson. After leaving the Mediterranean in March 1880 Hornby served as president of the Royal Naval College, Greenwich, from March 1881 to November 1882, when he became C-in-C, Portsmouth. During 1885, when the United Kingdom and Russia were on the verge of war over the disputed control of Penjdeh on the borders of Afghanistan and Turkmenistan, a large fleet was assembled at Portsmouth. Hornby hoisted his flag in the armoured ship Minotaur, but once more the crisis passed and he saw no more operational service before he finally hauled down his flag in November 1885. He then returned to his plough at Lordington, living as “Yeoman Hornby” and taking part in the usual activities of a country gentleman of his day. He remained influential in naval politics and was consulted both by Fisher [58] and by Fisher’s future opponent, Lord Charles Beresford, each of whom sought his aid in their plans for naval reform.
Hornby was promoted to admiral of the fleet on 1 May 1888 and became the senior serving officer of the Navy on the death of the aged Sir Provo Wallis on 13 February 1895, before retiring on his seventieth birthday a week later. He died of influenza at Lordington on 3 March 1895 and his ashes were scattered at Compton, Sussex.
HOTHAM
Sir CHARLES FREDERICK, GCB, GCVO (1843–1924) [55]
Charles Hotham, the eldest son of a captain in the Bengal Horse Artillery, and a distant relative of several senior naval officers, was born on 10 March 1843. He joined the Navy in 1856 and became a lieutenant on 17 February 1863, when he was appointed to the frigate Curacoa, pendant-ship of the commodore on the Australia station. Curacoa contributed to a naval brigade in New Zealand during the Second Maori War and Hotham took part in the attack on Rangariri (20 November 1863), where he was wounded, and the Gate Pa (29 April 1864), where he earned a recommendation for promotion to commander. He completed the necessary length of service on 19 April 1865, when he was promoted to this rank accordingly. He then returned home and was appointed to the gunboat Jaseur in August 1867. Hotham served in this ship on the West Coast of Africa until the summer of 1869 and thereafter in the Mediterranean Fleet. After being promoted to captain on 29 December 1871 he went on half-pay and married Margaret Milne-Horne, the daughter of a Berwickshire gentleman, and a niece of Sir Alexander Milne [41]. They later had a daughter and two sons, of whom the elder, a Clerk to the House of Lords, predeceased him in 1924, and the younger became an admiral.
Hotham commanded the corvette Charybdis on the China station from February 1877 to 1880. In November 1881 he became flag captain to Sir Beauchamp Seymour (Lord Alcester), C-in-C, Mediterranean, in the battleship Alexandra. He took part in the British bombardment of Alexandria (11 July 1882) in response to an Egyptian nationalist uprising led by Colonel Arabi (‘Urbi) Pasha, and served as Seymour’s chief of staff in the subsequent operations ashore. After leaving Alexandra in 1884 Hotham served from April to December 1885 as senior officer on the South East Coast of America, in command of the corvette Ruby and a flotilla of three gunboats. During 1886–7 he was at the Admiralty as assistant to the Admiral Superintendent of Naval Reserves, followed by promotion to rear-admiral on 6 January 1888. In the same month he was appointed to the Board of Admiralty as fourth naval lord. Hotham left the Admiralty at the end of 1888 and served from February 1890 to May 1893 as C-in-C, Pacific, with his flag in the cruiser Warspite. In February 1891, during a revolution in Chile, he was shot at while going ashore in his gig to arrange an armistice. The fighting continued until 28 August 1892, when a multinational naval brigade from British, French, German and United States warships was landed to restore order. He was promoted to vice-admiral on 1 September 1893 and awarded the KCB in 1895. Sir Charles Hotham was C-in-C, Nore, from December 1897 to July 1899, with promotion to admiral on 1 January 1899. Between October 1900 and August 1903 he was C-in-C, Portsmouth. He was promoted to admiral of the fleet on 30 August 1903 and retired in March 1913. He died on 23 May 1925.
HOWE
RICHARD, Earl Howe, KG (1726–1799) [9]
Richard Howe, the second son of an Irish viscount and his wife, the daughter of George I and his Hanoverian mistress, the Countess of Dartmouth, was born in London on 8 March 1726. This royal connection proved of value to the family and Viscount Howe held the post of governor of Barbados from 1732 until his death there in 1735. Richard Howe entered Eton College in 1735. With the outbreak of the
War of Jenkins’s Ear, he was appointed on 16 July 1739 to the 4th-rate Pearl, commanded by his cousin, the Honourable Edward Legge, though he probably remained at school for another year until joining Legge in the 4th-rate Severn. This ship formed part of the squadron under Anson [5] intended for operations against the Spanish in the Pacific. It sailed with him, but after rounding Cape Horn was driven back by storms and eventually returned to England in June 1742. In the meantime, the war between the United Kingdom and Spain had been overtaken in 1740 by the outbreak of a wider conflict, the War of the Austrian Succession. Howe was appointed in August 1742 to the 3rd-rate Burford, in which he served in the West Indies, and took part in the British attack on La Guiaria, Caracas, Venezuela (18 February 1743). On 10 March 1743 he moved to the 3rd-rate Suffolk, flagship of Sir Charles Knowles, second-in-command in the West Indies station. He was appointed an acting lieutenant in the 5th-rate Eltham on 10 July 1743, before returning to Suffolk as a midshipman on 8 October 1743.
Howe was appointed lieutenant on 25 May 1744 at Antigua, in the bomb vessel Comet, with which he returned home in August 1745. With his commission confirmed, he became lieutenant in the 1st-rate Royal George on 12 August 1745, prior to being made commander of the sloop Baltimore, deployed in the North Sea and Scottish waters at the time of the 1745 Jacobite Rising. On 1 May 1746 he was wounded when Baltimore, together with another sloop and a light frigate, was engaged with two heavily-armed French privateers off the west coast of Scotland. After returning to Portsmouth Howe was appointed captain of the 6th-rate Tryton, with seniority from 10 April 1745. In 1747 he sailed on convoy protection duty to Lisbon, where he exchanged to take command of the 4th-rate Ripon. He took this ship to the West Indies, where he rejoined Knowles (by this time C-in-C, Jamaica) in October 1748 and became his flag captain in the 2nd-rate Cornwall. With the War of the Austrian Succession over, he returned home and remained ashore until March 1751, when he was given command of the 5th-rate Glory, in which he served for a year off the coast of West Africa and in the West Indies. Between June 1752 and August 1754 he commanded the 6th-rate Dolphin in the Mediterranean, engaged in trade protection duties against North African pirates.