STEWART
JAMES, see STEUART, JAMES [3]
STURDEE
Sir FREDERICK CHARLES DOVETON, 1st Baronet, GCB,
KCMG, CVO (1859–1925) [73]
Frederick Sturdee, the eldest son of a captain in the Navy, was born at Charlton, near Woolwich, on 9 June 1859. He attended the Royal Naval School at New Cross, Greater London (now the campus of Goldsmiths’ College, University of London) and joined the Navy in July 1871 as a cadet in the training ship Britannia. He passed out first in his class and became a midshipman on 19 July 1873. He served in the frigate Undaunted, flagship on the China station, from 1876 until returning home to become an acting sub-lieutenant on 9 June 1878 at the beginning of his promotion courses. Sturdee was promoted to lieutenant on 7 Feb 1880, with appointment in May 1880 to the brig Martin, tender to the training ship for boys at Portsmouth. Between February 1881 and September 1882 he was in the torpedo depot ship Hecla under Captain Arthur Wilson [59] in the Mediterranean. There he took part in the British operations at Alexandria in July 1882, undertaken in response to the Egyptian nationalist revolution led by Colonel Arabi (‘Urbi) Pasha. Sturdee then joined the torpedo school Vernon at Portsmouth, where he remained until December 1885 and qualified as a torpedo officer. In 1882 he married Marion Andrews, of Fortis Green, Middlesex, and later had with her a son and a daughter.
Sturdee was from 1886 to 1889 the torpedo lieutenant in the battleship Bellerophon, flagship on the North America and West Indies station. He rejoined Vernon in 1889 and remained on the staff there until promoted to commander on 30 June 1893. He was then appointed to the Admiralty as a torpedo specialist in the Directorate of Naval Ordnance and served there until November 1897, when he became commanding officer of the cruiser Porpoise on the Australia station. At the beginning of 1899 he was involved in a war of succession in Samoa, for long an area of disputed influence between Germany, the United States and the United Kingdom. Landing parties from United States and British warships supported one party, while the other was encouraged by the Germans. Sturdee’s contribution to Anglo-American diplomacy, which included the bombardment of Apia by the USS Philadelphia and his own participation in a violent argument with the local German representatives, was rewarded by his promotion to captain on 30 June 1899. The Samoan islands were subsequently partitioned between the United States and Germany, with the German element, to Sturdee’s great satisfaction, falling to New Zealand soon after the outbreak of the First World War.
Sturdee returned to the Admiralty during 1902 as Assistant Director of Naval Intelligence. In November 1903 he was given command of the armoured cruiser Bedford in the Home Fleet, and in May 1905 became chief of staff to Lord Charles Beresford, C-in-C, Mediterranean Fleet, in the battleship Bulwark. He followed Beresford in 1907, when the latter became C-in-C, Channel Fleet, and commanded successively the battleships King Edward VII and New Zealand until his promotion to rear-admiral on 12 September 1908. In 1910, with his flag in the battleship St Vincent, Sturdee was appointed to command the First Battle Squadron in the Home Fleet. He expressed doubts about the advantages claimed for the new Dreadnought class battleships, armed predominantly with long-range guns, on the grounds that the weather conditions in the North Sea usually restricted visibility to a range when this advantage would count for little. He also supported the strategy of a close blockade of German ports, as planned by his C-in-C, Sir Henry May [65] and the First Sea Lord, Sir Arthur Wilson [59] (his old captain in Hecla). During 1911 Sturdee was president of an Admiralty committee on submarines and then returned to the Home Fleet in December 1911 to command the Third Cruiser Squadron, with his flag in the cruiser Shannon. Sturdee impressed the fleet second-in-command, Sir John Jellicoe [68], with his careful study of naval tactics and gained a reputation as a skilful squadron leader. In 1913 he transferred with Shannon to command the Second Cruiser Squadron where he remained, with the award of the KCB, until promoted to vice-admiral on 13 December 1913.
Sir Doveton Sturdee succeeded Sir Henry Jackson [70] as Chief of War Staff at the Admiralty in July 1914. On the outbreak of the First World War in the following month he was handicapped both by the lack of a fully-developed staff organization and his own insistence on conducting most of the staff work in person. His immediate superior, the First Sea Lord, Prince Louis of Battenberg [74], was driven to resign on account of his German origins at the end of October 1914 and was succeeded by Lord Fisher [58]. A few days later, at the battle of Coronel (1 November 1914), the German East Asiatic Squadron inflicted the first defeat the Navy had suffered since the American War of 1812. Fisher had already decided to replace Sturdee, whom he regarded as an ally of Sir Charles Beresford, his opponent in a feud that had divided the Navy into two factions. Winston Churchill, the First Lord of the Admiralty, had worked closely with Sturdee since the beginning of the war and refused to let him be made the scapegoat for the Coronel disaster. He accordingly offered him command of the China station, enlarged by responsibility for naval operations in the Pacific. Sturdee declined, as this would have meant being based ashore, and declared his willingness to remain in post under Fisher.
When Fisher decided to send the battle cruisers Invincible and Inflexible from the Grand Fleet to the South Atlantic, Sturdee commented that this was the course he had previously advised. Fisher was provoked into declaring that he would no longer retain Sturdee on his staff. Churchill thereupon gave Sturdee command of the two ships, with which he proceeded (with his flag in Invincible) to the South Atlantic. While Sturdee’s ships were coaling at Port Stanley, Falkland Islands, the German squadron appeared on the horizon. Sturdee remained calm and, as the Germans turned away on discovering the presence of the battle-cruisers, put to sea to avenge Coronel at the ensuing battle of the Falkland Islands (8 December 1914). At the end of the action he remarked to his flag captain “Well, Beamish, we were sacked from the Admiralty, but we’ve done pretty well today”. He returned home a hero and, despite further petty criticism and complaints from Fisher, became the first admiral since the Napoleonic Wars to receive the baronetcy conventionally awarded for victory in a naval engagement. At the end of January 1915 Sir Doveton Sturdee was given command of the Fourth Battle Squadron in the Grand Fleet, with his flag in the battleship Benbow.
Sturdee remained in the Grand Fleet, in which he served at the battle of Jutland (31 May–1 June 1916) until promoted to admiral on 17 May 1917. He was C-in-C, Nore, from 1 March 1918 and retained this post after the end of the war in November 1918 until his promotion to admiral of the fleet on 5 July 1921. He retired to his home at Wargrave House, Camberley, Surrey, and died on 7 May 1925. He was buried in the nearby parish churchyard of St Peter’s, Frimley. His son, a future rear-admiral, succeeded to his baronetcy, and had a daughter who became an officer in the Women’s Royal Naval Service and married the future Sir Edward Ashmore [109]. Sturdee’s own daughter married a future admiral and became the mother of Sir William Staveley [113].
SYMONDS
Sir THOMAS MATTHEW CHARLES, GCB (1813–1894) [40]
Thomas Symonds was born on 15 July 1813. His grandfather had been a captain in the Navy, and his father, (later Rear-Admiral Sir) William Symonds, as Surveyor of the Navy from 1832 to 1847, became the designer of a series of warships whose sailing abilities were the cause of much controversy. Symonds joined the Navy in April 1825 and rose to become a lieutenant on 5 November 1832. He was appointed in April 1833 to the 6th-rate Vestal at Portsmouth, and then moved to the Mediterranean, where he joined the 4th-rate Endymion in September 1833 and the 1st-rate Britannia in July 1834. From December 1834 until his promotion to commander on 21 October 1837 he was in the 6th-rate Rattlesnake on the East Indies station. In August 1838 Symonds was given command of the sloop Rover on the North America and West Indies station, where he remained prior to being promoted to captain on 22 February 1841. In September 1845 he married Anna Heywood, the daughter of a captain in the Navy.
Symonds returned to sea in the 6th-rate Spartan, an appointment arrang
ed by his father to ensure that this ship (one of his designs) was given a fair chance in trials against the 6th-rate Eurydice (designed by a rival officer, the Honourable Sir George Elliot). He commanded Spartan in the Mediterranean from May 1846 to 1849 and, after returning home, was appointed in January 1850 to the 4th-rate Arethusa. He went back to the Mediterranean in Arethusa during 1852 and, after the outbreak of the Crimean War in 1854, took part in operations in the Black Sea. Symonds became a rear-admiral on 1 November 1860 and a vice-admiral on 2 April 1866. He was awarded the KCB in March 1867 and commanded in the Channel from December 1867 to July 1870. Sir Thomas Symonds was promoted to admiral on 14 July 1871 and was C-in-C, Devonport, from November 1871 to November 1875. He became an admiral of the fleet on 15 July 1879 and died at Torquay on 14 November 1894.
TOVEY
Sir JOHN CRONYN, Baron Tovey, GCB, KBE, DSO
(1885–1971) [92]
John Tovey was born at Borley Hill, Rochester, Kent, on 7 March 1885, the youngest in a family of four daughters and seven sons of a colonel of the Royal Engineers and his Canadian wife. He was educated at Durnford House School, Langton Matravers, Dorset, and joined the Navy as a cadet in the training ship Britannia in January 1900. He served as a midshipman successively in the battleship Majestic, flagship of the Channel Squadron, and the cruiser Ariadne, flagship on the North America and West Indies station, and was promoted to acting sub-lieutenant on 15 July 1904 at the beginning of his promotion courses. Tovey was promoted to lieutenant on 15 July 1906 and served from 1908 to 1910 in the armoured cruiser King Alfred, flagship of the C-in-C on the China station. Between April 1910 and June 1911 he was on the staff of the Royal Naval College, Osborne, and from then until July 1912 he served in the cruiser Bellona, leader of the Second Destroyer Flotilla in the Home Fleet. In November 1911 he was appointed first lieutenant of the scout Patrol in the Home Fleet. Tovey subsequently qualified as a gunnery officer and in April 1913 became gunnery lieutenant of the light cruiser Amphion in the Home Fleet.
With the outbreak of the First World War in August 1914 Tovey became lieutenant-commander of the destroyer flotilla leader Faulknor. In January 1915 he was given command of the destroyer Jackal in the Grand Fleet, in which he served until appointed on 7 May 1916 to command the destroyer Onslow. He took part in the battle of Jutland (31 May–1 June 1915) where, as part of the Thirteenth Destroyer Flotilla, he torpedoed the German light cruiser Wiesbaden and went on to attack the main battle line before being stopped by hits on his ship’s boiler room. As the battle fleets moved on, Onslow was given a tow by the damaged destroyer Defender and reached Aberdeen forty-eight hours later. Tovey was subsequently awarded the DSO and the first of his four mentions in despatches. In March 1916 he married Aida Rowe, the daughter of a private gentleman settled in Plymouth. In October 1917 he was appointed to the new destroyer Ursa and subsequently moved to the destroyer Wolfhound, where he remained after the end of hostilities in November 1918, until joining the Royal Naval Staff College, Greenwich, in May 1919.
Between June 1920 and June 1922 Tovey was at the Admiralty in the Operations Division. He was promoted to captain on 31 December 1923 and from 1925 to 1926 was based at Port Edgar, Edinburgh, as Captain (Destroyers) of the Eighth Destroyer Flotilla in the Atlantic Fleet, in the flotilla leader Bruce. During 1927 he attended the Imperial Defence College, London, and subsequently returned to the Admiralty as Naval Assistant to the Second Sea Lord. He then commanded the battleship Rodney from April 1932 until January 1935, when he was appointed commodore of the naval barracks, Chatham.
Tovey was promoted to rear-admiral on 27 August 1935. In March 1938, he became Rear-Admiral (Destroyers) in the Mediterranean Fleet with his flag first in the depot ship Woolwich and then in the cruiser Galatea, and was promoted to vice-admiral on 3 May 1939. Following the entry of Italy into the Second World War and the fall of France in June 1940 Tovey was appointed second-in-command of the Mediterranean Fleet. He was given command of the fleet’s light forces and took part in the battle of Calabria (9 July 1940), with his flag in the cruiser Orion.
At the end of 1940 Tovey was appointed C-in-C, Home Fleet, with the acting rank of admiral. In May 1941 he commanded the operations against the German battleship Bismarck and, with his flag in the battleship King George V, was present at her destruction on 27 May 1941, for which he was awarded the KBE. In the aftermath of this action, the First Sea Lord, Sir Dudley Pound [89], considered court-martialling Captain J C Leach of the battleship Prince of Wales for breaking off action after Bismarck had sunk his consort, the battle-cruiser Hood. Tovey declared that in such a case he would haul down his flag and appear in court as prisoner’s friend, with the result that the idea was dropped. Following the entry of the Soviet Union into the war in June 1941 the Home Fleet assumed the added task of escorting Arctic convoys to Northern Russia. Sir John Tovey was promoted to admiral on 30 October 1942. He later lost favour with the Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, who described him as “foolish and obstinate” for his continued argument that the battle of the Atlantic rather than the strategic bomber offensive should have priority in the allocation of aircraft. He advocated greater use of the fleet to attack the German battleship Tirpitz, based in the Norwegian fjords, but was ordered to concentrate on convoy protection.
In July 1943 Tovey hauled down his flag in the battleship Duke of York and left the Home Fleet to become C-in-C, Nore, with promotion to admiral of the fleet on 22 October 1944. There he was responsible for coastal operations in support of the Allied advance into the Low Countries in late 1944, and the protection of the lines of communication across the North Sea. He remained at the Nore following the end of hostilities in 1945 until going on half-pay in April 1946, with the grant of a peerage as Baron Tovey of Langton Matravers. He died, without offspring, at Funchal, Madeira, on 12 January 1971 and his peerage became extinct.
TYRWHITT
Sir REGINALD YORKE, 1st Baronet, GCB, DSO (1870–1951)
[82]
Reginald Tyrwhitt, the fifth son of the vicar of St Mary Magdalene, Oxford, was born at Oxford on 10 May 1870. He joined the Navy as a cadet in the training ship Britannia in July 1883 and was appointed to the battleship Alexandra, flagship of the C-in-C, Mediterranean Fleet, in August 1885. In November 1888 he joined the cruiser Calypso in the Training Squadron and was promoted to acting sub-lieutenant at the beginning of his promotion courses on 14 December 1889. He took part in manoeuvres in the armoured cruiser Australia in 1889 and in the battleship Ajax in 1890, and in March 1892 was appointed to the brig Pilot, tender to the training ship for boys at Plymouth. Tyrwhitt was promoted to lieutenant on 25 August 1892 and served in the light cruiser Cleopatra on the North America and West Indies station until the end of 1895. In January 1896 he was given command of the destroyer Hart, from where he moved at the end of the year to be first lieutenant of the despatch vessel Surprise in the Mediterranean. In December 1899 he became first lieutenant of the cruiser Indefatigable on the North America and West Indies station and remained there until promoted to commander on 1 January 1903. He was then appointed commander of the cruiser Aurora, tender to the training ship Britannia, and in the same year married Angela Corbally of Rathbeale Hall, Swords, County Dublin, with whom he later had a family of two daughters and a son.
From 1904 to 1905 Tyrwhitt commanded the torpedo-boat destroyer Waveney, followed by command successively of the scouts Attentive in 1906 and Skirmisher in 1907. He was promoted to captain on 30 June 1908, followed by appointment as Captain of the Fourth Destroyer Flotilla, based at Portsmouth, in the cruiser Topaze. From 1910 to 1912 he served in the Mediterranean as flag captain successively of the cruisers Bacchante and Good Hope and then joined the Home Fleet as Captain of the Second Destroyer Flotilla, in the flotilla leader Bellona. In 1914 he became commodore of all destroyers in the Home Fleet. On the outbreak of the First World War in August 1914 he was appointed commodore of the Harwich Force, with the First and Third Destroyer Flotillas under his command and his broad pendan
t in the light cruiser Amethyst.
Tyrwhitt proved an able leader of light forces. Together with Commodore Roger Keyes [80], whose submarine flotilla was based at Harwich, he proposed an action that became the first major naval engagement of the war, the battle of Heligoland Bight (28 August 1914). With his broad pendant in the new light cruiser Arethusa, he led a force of thirty-one destroyers in an attack on German torpedo-boats, provoking a response by German light cruisers who, in turn, were outmatched by the Battle-cruiser Squadron under Rear-Admiral David Beatty [69]. Arethusa was hit in the engine-room, but Tyrwhitt returned with only two other ships damaged. At the battle of the Dogger Bank (24 January 1915) Tyrwhitt’s force was again in close co-operation with Beatty’s battle-cruisers. In March 1916 he escorted the seaplane carrier Vindix to the Skagerrak to attack the German airship base at Cuxhaven. Two collisions delayed his return, but bad weather intervened before the German surface fleet could reach him.
British Admirals of the Fleet Page 39