Wemyss then became flag lieutenant in the battleship Anson, flagship of the second-in-command of the Channel Squadron. Between 1890 and 1892 he served in the armoured cruiser Undaunted, commanded by Captain Lord Charles Beresford in the Mediterranean, and from 1892 to 1895 in the battleship Empress of India, flagship of the second-in-command of the Channel Squadron. Between 1895 and 1896 he was in the cruiser Astraea in the Mediterranean and then served as the senior lieutenant in the royal yacht Victoria and Albert until his promotion to commander on 31 August 1898. Wemyss then became commander of the cruiser Niobe, first in the Channel and subsequently at the Cape of Good Hope during the Anglo-Boer South African War, in which he was employed in the transport of Boer prisoners of war to St Helena. He returned home at the end of 1900 and was invited by his old ship-mate, Prince George, who had become Duke of York, to be second-in-command of the passenger ship Ophir in his cruise to open the new Australian Parliament. At the end of this cruise, he was promoted to captain on 6 November 1901.
Wemyss was selected to be the first Captain of the newly-created Royal Naval College for junior cadets at Osborne, Isle of Wight, and held this appointment for two years from August 1903. In 1903 he married Victoria Morier, the only daughter of a leading diplomat, and later had with her a daughter, their only child. He commanded successively the cruiser Suffolk in the Mediterranean Fleet and the battleship Implacable, flagship of the Atlantic Fleet, in which he was flag-captain from March 1909 to May 1910. The Prince of Wales (the former Duke of York) then invited Wemyss to go with him as captain of the liner Balmoral Castle on his cruise to open the new South African Parliament. The death of Edward VII brought the Prince to the throne as George V and Wemyss sailed instead with the new King’s younger brother, the Duke of Connaught. He was promoted to rear-admiral on 19 April 1911 and commanded the Second Battle Squadron in the Home Fleet from October 1912 to September 1913, with his flag in the battleship Orion.
On the outbreak of the First World War in August 1914 Wemyss was given command of the Twelfth Cruiser Squadron in the Channel, with his flag in the cruiser Charybdis. After escorting troopships from Canada to the United Kingdom he returned to the Channel, with his flag in the cruiser Euryalus. In February 1915 he was sent to the Mediterranean with the task of establishing a base at Mudros for an attack on the Dardanelles. This base was on the Turkish island of Lemnos (Limnos), occupied since 1913 by the Greeks, who were persuaded to leave so that the Allies could use it without infringing Greek neutrality. Wemyss, with his flag in the gunboat Hussar, was installed as the Allied governor, and the departure on medical grounds of the Allied Naval C-in-C for this campaign, Vice-Admiral Carden, left him the senior naval officer on the station. Wemyss volunteered to remain as governor at Mudros and the seagoing command was given to Carden’s second-in-command, Rear-Admiral John De Robeck [77]. With his flag again in Euryalus, Wemyss commanded a squadron at the British landings on Cape Helles on 25 April 1915, and was mentioned in despatches for his support to the landings at Suvla Bay, Gallipoli (Gelibolu), on 9 August 1915. He became acting vice-admiral during De Robeck’s absence on leave in November 1915, and urged that one more attempt should be made to force a passage through the Dardanelles by the fleet alone, but the proposal was not accepted. The Cabinet decided to abandon the whole expedition and Wemyss became responsible for the successful re-embarkation of the troops from Suvla Bay and Anzac Cove (Ari Burnu) on the night of 20 December 1915. He was awarded the KCB in January 1916.
Sir Rosslyn Wemyss was then appointed C-in-C, East Indies and Egypt station, with his flag still in Euryalus. He supported the Army in operations against Senussi tribesmen raiding Egypt from Libya (ceded to Italy by Turkey in 1912) and against the Turks in the Sinai peninsula. He also supported the campaign in Mesopotamia (Iraq) and went up the Tigris in a river gunboat as part of an unsuccessful attempt to relieve the British garrison of Kut-el-Amara, before its surrender at the end of April 1916. Wemyss spent the summer on a tour of the East Indies station and returned to Egypt in August 1916, where he co-operated with the British advances in Palestine and the Arab revolt led by the Emir Faisal and Colonel T E Lawrence. His promotion to vice-admiral was confirmed on 6 December 1916. He was appointed C-in-C, Mediterranean in June 1917, shortly before the Prime Minister of the day, David Lloyd George, installed an eminent railwayman, Sir Eric Geddes, as First Lord of the Admiralty. Wemyss’s spirited contribution to the Middle East campaign, the only land or sea theatre where British forces seemed to be achieving a victory, drew him to the notice of the Prime Minister. Geddes considered that the First Sea Lord, Sir John Jellicoe [68], lacked flexibility and imagination. Unable immediately to remove him from office, he decided to create a new post, Deputy First Sea Lord, to which Wemyss was appointed in the hope that this would bring a new spirit to the Naval Staff. Jellicoe declined to hand any of his own responsibilities to Wemyss and eventually Geddes dismissed Jellicoe on Christmas Eve 1917 and appointed Wemyss in his place.
Wemyss disliked the circumstances of his appointment, but accepted Geddes’s constitutional position and established cordial relations with him. He made a number of changes at the Admiralty with the intention of delegating and decentralizing command to trusted subordinates. He also appointed Commodore Roger Keyes [80] to command the Dover Patrol (Jellicoe’s support for the previous flag officer there had caused the final break with Geddes) and ordered him to implement the plans for more vigorous operations in the Channel that had been drawn up at the Admiralty by Keyes himself. At the end of the war, when the Germans asked for an Armistice early in November 1918, Wemyss ensured that British naval interests were fully represented. As neither the United States nor France was enthusiastic at the prospect of the German battle fleet falling into British hands, the wily Lloyd George arranged for its ships to be interned rather than formally surrendered, but nevertheless to be anchored under the guns of the Royal Navy. Wemyss, representing the Allied Navies, was one of the signatories at the Armistice agreement. When the German naval representative asked if it was right for the ships of the High Seas Fleet to be interned when they had not been defeated, Wemyss dryly remarked “they had only to come out”.
A capable diplomat, he played a full part in framing the naval articles of the Versailles Treaty and was promoted to admiral on 21 February 1919. In the same period he became increasingly at odds with Sir David Beatty [69], C-in-C, Grand Fleet, to whom Geddes had promised the post of First Sea Lord prior to his own departure to the Ministry of Transport in November 1919. A campaign against Wemyss’s retention of office began in the Press and in London society, and the two admirals’ ladies, neither of whom had ever liked the other, ceased to be on speaking terms. Wemyss himself indicated his readiness to combine the governorship of Malta with naval command in the Mediterranean, but Winston Churchill, at this time Secretary of State for War, insisted that the governorship continue to be filled by a general. He therefore remained at the Admiralty, where he had to deal with the problems of demobilization and financial reductions at a time of continued operational commitments in the Mediterranean and Black Sea, coupled with the determination of the United States to establish parity with the British Navy. In April 1919 he used the threat of resignation to overcome the Treasury’s delay in funding a recommended increase in naval pay.
Wemyss again offered to resign in July 1919, when his name did not appear in the Victory Honours list, though the other two Service Chiefs were given baronetcies and monetary awards. He was persuaded to remain in office until 1 November 1919, when he was promoted to admiral of the fleet, and accepted a barony as Lord Wester Wemyss, in lieu of the viscountcy he thought his due. He lost favour with Lloyd George and had never had any with Bonar Law, who became Prime Minister in October 1922, so thereafter remained on half-pay. He took up directorships with the Cable and Wireless Company and in the oil industry, and joined the retired list in 1929. After leaving office he lived mostly at Cannes, France, where he died in his garden on 24 May 1933. He was buried at his famil
y home, Wemyss Castle, and, with no male heir, his peerage became extinct.
WEST
Sir JOHN, GCB (1774–1862) [22]
John West, the son of a lieutenant colonel in the First Foot Guards, nephew of the future Admiral Temple West and grandson of Vice-Admiral Temple West, was born on 28 July 1774. More remotely, he could claim family connections with the Pitts (Earls of Chatham), and Admiral Sir Alexander Hood (later Viscount Bridport). He joined the Navy in 1788 as a first class volunteer and served on the coast of West Africa in the 6th-rate Pomona, commanded by one of Hood’s followers. During the next two years he served first in the 4th-rate Salisbury, flagship on the North America station, and then, as a midshipman, in the 2nd-rate London, Hood’s flagship in the Channel. From July 1790 to the outbreak of the French Revolutionary War in February 1793 he was in Captain Alexander Hood’s 5th-rate Hebe in the Channel. After serving in the 4th-rate Romney in the Mediterranean and the 1st-rate Royal George in the Channel he was promoted to lieutenant on 27 July 1793 and appointed to the 3rd-rate Saturn, at Portsmouth, in November 1793. In February 1794 he rejoined Viscount Bridport in Royal George, his flagship in the Channel, and later was present at Bridport’s action off the Ile de Groix, Lorient, when three French ships of the line were captured (23 June 1795). West was made a commander on 7 September 1795 and assumed command of the sloop Diligence, in the West Indies, on 11 December 1795. He was promoted to captain of the 6th-rate Tourterelle on 15 November 1796 and returned home in 1798.
During the brief peace with France following the Treaty of Amiens (27 March 1801) West commanded the 3rd-rate Utrecht at Chatham. The war was renewed in May 1803, but he was not again employed until January 1807, when he became captain of the 3rd-rate Excellent. In November 1808, with the Spanish national uprising against French occupation, he operated off the coast of Catalonia and landed with 250 marines and seamen to support the defenders of Rosas, where he had his horse shot under him leading a sortie for which he was mentioned in despatches. He then joined the blockade of Toulon and subsequently served in the Adriatic until he was appointed to the 3rd-rate Sultan in December 1809. West commanded this ship in the Mediterranean, the Channel and the West Indies until March 1814, when Napoleon’s defeat and abdication brought the war at sea to an end.
In 1817 West married Harriet Adams, the daughter of a Northamptonshire landowner, and later had with her a family of three sons and two daughters. He became a rear-admiral of the Blue on 12 August 1819, rear-admiral of the White on 19 July 1825, rear-admiral of the Red on 27 May 1825, vice-admiral of the Blue on 22 July 1830, vice-admiral of the White on 10 January 1837 and vice-admiral of the Red on 28 June 1839. He was awarded the KCB in July 1840 and was promoted to be admiral of the Blue on 23 November 1841. Sir John West was C-in-C, Portsmouth, from April 1845 to April 1848. He became an admiral of the White on 20 November 1846, admiral of the Red on 15 September 1849, admiral of the fleet on 25 June 1858 and died at his home in Eaton Square, London, on 14 April 1862.
WHITSHED
Sir JAMES HAWKINS, 1st Baronet, GCB (1762–1849) [17]
James Hawkins, born in 1762, was the third son of the bishop of Raphoe, County Donegal, and came from a prominent family in the Anglo-Irish Protestant Ascendancy. He joined the Navy in 1773 and was carried successively on the books of the sloop Ranger, on the Irish station, and then on those of the 3rd-rate Kent at Plymouth, where he escaped injury when an accidental explosion killed or wounded forty-two members of her crew. After the beginning of the American War of Independence in 1775 he served off the North American coast, first as midshipman and later as acting lieutenant, successively in the schooner Canada (wrecked in a violent gale), the 4th-rate Romney, the 6th-rate Aldborough and the 5th-rates Diamond and Rainbow. He became a lieutenant on 4 September 1778 in the 5th-rate Amazon in the Channel, before transferring to the 2nd-rate Sandwich, flagship of Sir George Rodney, and taking part in operations leading to the relief of Gibraltar early in 1780. At Gibraltar he was appointed commander of the captured sloop San Vincente, in which he sailed with Rodney’s fleet to the West Indies and was present at an indecisive fleet action off Dominica (17 April 1780). He was promoted to be captain of the 6th-rate Deal Castle on 18 April 1780.
Left behind with several other major combatants when Rodney moved his main force to North America, Deal Castle was at St Lucia when a hurricane struck the West Indies in October 1780. The British naval base at Barbados was destroyed, along with six rated ships. Hawkins’s consort, the sloop Camelion, was lost without trace. His own ship was dismasted and, after several days at sea, was wrecked on the Spanish-held island of Puerto Rico. Hawkins and his crew reached the shore on rafts, with the loss of only three men, and spent two months as prisoners of war, before being exchanged and sent to the nearby British Virgin Islands. He was acquitted by court-martial for any blame in the loss of his ship and, after recovering from fever, was sent home with despatches as a mark of distinction. In July 1781 he was given command of the 5th-rate Ceres and sailed for New York, where he remained until 1783, when the war came to an end. Between 1784 and 1786 he commanded the 6th-rate Rose, based at Leith.
Hawkins spent the next few years on half-pay. He attended lectures on astronomy at Oxford University, and visited the Baltic, Denmark and Russia. In 1791, as a condition of an inheritance from his cousin, he took the surname Whitshed, belonging to his maternal grandmother, and married Sophia Bentinck, a distant relative of the Earls of Portland. She was the daughter of a naval captain (the inventor of the chain-pump) who had died in 1775, the sister of a future vice-admiral and the sister-in-law of Sir George Martin [18]. They later had a family of four daughters and two sons, of whom the elder was killed in action as a midshipman in December 1813. After the outbreak of the French Revolutionary War in February 1793, Whitshed was appointed to the 3rd-rate Arrogant, in which he served in the Channel until early 1795, when he transferred to the 2nd-rate Namur. He was in a squadron sent to reinforce Sir John Jervis [12] at Lisbon in 1796, and served under him at the battle of St Vincent (14 February 1797), for which, along with the other captains, he was awarded a gold medal. He remained in the Channel in command successively of the 3rd-rate Ajax and the 2nd-rate Formidable, before becoming rear-admiral of the White on 14 February 1799. In April 1800, with his flag in the 1st-rate Queen Charlotte, he led a squadron of four ships of the line and two frigates to join Jervis (Earl of St Vincent), under whom he served first in the Mediterranean and then in the blockade of Brest.
Whitshed became rear-admiral of the Red on 1 January 1801 and continued in the Channel in the 2nd-rate Téméraire. With the fleet reduced following the conclusion of peace with France by the Treaty of Amiens (27 March 1802), he declined the appointment of C-in-C at Halifax, Nova Scotia, and went on half-pay. When war with France was renewed in 1803 he was appointed naval adviser to the government of Ireland, responsible for coastal defences, the Sea Fencibles, and the construction of signal stations and Martello towers at vulnerable points around Dublin. He was promoted to vice-admiral of the Blue on 23 April 1804 and vice-admiral of the White on 9 November 1805. Between 1807 and 1810 Whitshed was C-in-C, Cork. He became vice-admiral of the Red on 28 April 1808, admiral of the Blue on 31 July 1810 and admiral of the White on 12 August 1812 and, after the defeat of Napoleon, was awarded the KCB in April 1815. Sir James Whitshed was C-in-C, Portsmouth from 31 January 1821 to 12 April 1824 and was promoted to admiral of the Red on 19 July 1821. He became a baronet in May 1834, a baron of the kingdom of Hanover in 1843 and an admiral of the fleet on 8 January 1844. He died at his home in Cavendish Square, London, on 28 October 1849 and his baronetcy was inherited by his younger son.
WILLIAM IV
WILLIAM HENRY, HM King of Great Britain and Ireland
(1765–1837) [11]
Prince William Henry, born at Buckingham Palace, London, on 21 August 1765, was the third son of George III and Queen Charlotte. The King decided that, with his eldest son destined for the throne and his second for the Army, his third s
hould make a career in the Navy. After receiving a general education from his tutors, Prince William joined the Navy on 14 June 1779, carried on the books of the 2nd-rate Prince George at Portsmouth as an able seaman. During the American War of Independence he served in the Channel in August 1779 and as a midshipman at the relief of Gibraltar in January 1780. There he was arrested in a tavern brawl with a group of common soldiers who had spoken slightingly of the Navy’s performance in the relief operations and was only released after the intervention of his admiral. Prince William returned with the fleet to England, where a London theatre crowd hailed him as a hero, but was soon again arrested for disorderly conduct in a public pleasure garden. The King ordered him back to his ship, so that he spent the summer of 1780 at sea in the Channel.
In January 1781 Prince William met and fell in love with an attractive teenage debutante, Julia Fortescue. He spoke of marrying her, at which her parents removed her to Scotland, while the King sent William to the North America station, where he arrived at New York at the end of August 1781. There, in March 1782, he became the target of a kidnap plan, authorized by George Washington, but the scheme was discovered by British Intelligence officers. The prince was immediately ordered to sea in the 4th-rate Warwick, in which he served in an action off the Delaware. On 4 November 1782 he moved to the 2nd-rate Barfleur, flagship in the West Indies. Hostilities with Spain ended in January 1783 and William, escorted by his new friend Captain Horatio Nelson, made an official visit to the Spanish colony of Cuba. There he was greatly attracted by Maria Solano, daughter of a Spanish admiral, and succeeded in luring her away from her duennas. This caused much offence to the Spaniards and Nelson was obliged to hurry him back to naval duty.
After William’s return home in June 1783 the King decided that he should go to Hanover. He spent the next two years on the Continent, where his itinerary included a visit to Frederick the Great (who reproved him for not having read Candide) and the Grand Tour through Italy. He was nearly involved in a duel with Baron Hardenberg, a card-sharp who allowed him to win the first few hands, only to find that William left the table with his winnings rather than playing on to be fleeced. He found the German aristocracy haughty and over-punctilious, and they in turn were offended by his coarse language, a failing that he had picked up at sea and one that remained with him throughout his life. Nevertheless, he embarked on numerous flirtations and affaires, and had at least one natural son, for whom he later provided. His wild conduct distressed his mother and angered his father. Eventually their second son, the Duke of York, persuaded the King that a return to duty with the fleet would give William a sense of self-discipline and his repeated requests to leave Hanover were granted in 1785. He was kept away from London society while he studied for his promotion examination and on 17 June 1785 was appointed third lieutenant of the 5th-rate Hebe. After a circumnavigation of Great Britain he returned to Portsmouth, where he became attached to Sarah Martin, the daughter of the resident Commissioner to the Navy, and spoke of marrying her. The horrified commissioner sent his daughter to stay in London and the equally horrified King sent his son to Plymouth.
British Admirals of the Fleet Page 41