In December 1897 Jellicoe became flag captain to Vice-Admiral Sir Edward Seymour [57], C-in-C on the China station, in the battleship Centurion. In May 1898, in response to the German occupation of Kiao-Chow (Jiaozhou), Seymour was ordered to occupy Wei-hai-wei, subsequently leased to the British by the Government of China. At the end of May 1900, when the diplomatic legations in Peking (Beijing) were besieged by anti-western rebels known as the Boxers, a multi-national naval brigade commanded by Seymour, with Jellicoe acting as chief of staff, set out to their relief. The force left the mouth of the Pei-ho River on 10 June 1900, but met serious opposition when Chinese Imperial troops joined the Boxers, and was driven back to Tientsin (Tienjin). On 21 June 1900 Jellicoe was badly wounded in the lung by a bullet that stayed there for the rest of his life. He was not expected to survive, but did so and was evacuated to Wei-hai-wei, from where he returned home in September 1901.
Jellicoe was appointed in March 1902 to the newly created post of Naval Assistant to the Controller of the Navy and third naval lord of the Admiralty, whose primary responsibilty was for ship design and construction. He had not previously married, though he had become engaged in every rank that he held. Now he renewed an earlier friendship with the twenty-four year-old Gwendoline, the second daughter of a self-made Scottish millionaire and shipping-line owner, Sir Charles Cayzer. They married in July 1902 and later had a son and five daughters. A young woman with a mind and money of her own, Gwendoline Jellicoe proved an excellent Navy wife. Her care for her own appearance led her husband later to comment that he could get the Grand Fleet to sea in a shorter time than she took to get ready to go out. Between August 1903 and November 1904 he commanded the armoured cruiser Drake on the North America and West Indies station. Fisher, who had become First Sea Lord in October 1904, recalled Jellicoe to the Admiralty where in February 1908 he was appointed Director of Naval Ordnance. With Fisher’s other supporters, he played an important part in the development of fast battleships armed entirely with heavy guns, and a new type of capital ship, the battle-cruiser (built as the Dreadnought and Invincible classes respectively). Jellicoe was promoted to rear-admiral on 8 February 1907 and became second-in-command of the Atlantic Fleet, with his flag in the battleship Albemarle, in August 1907, followed by the award of the KCVO.
Sir John Jellicoe returned to the Admiralty as Third Sea Lord and Controller of the Navy in October 1908, where he implemented a major building programme to maintain British superiority at sea. He became acting vice-admiral in command of the Atlantic Fleet in December 1910 (confirmed on 18 September 1911), with his flag in the battleship Prince of Wales, and in December 1911 was appointed second-in-command of the Home Fleet, with his flag in the battleship Hercules. Jellicoe was appointed Second Sea Lord in December 1912, in the Board led by Winston Churchill in Asquith’s Cabinet, with Prince Louis of Battenberg [74] as First Sea Lord. Both Churchill and Battenberg came to share Fisher’s assessment that, in the event of war with Germany, Jellicoe would prove another Nelson. In August 1914, on the outbreak of the First World War, he was sent to join the Grand Fleet at Scapa Flow, ostensibly as second-in-command to its existing C-in-C, Sir George Callaghan [67], but with sealed orders instructing him to take command. Jellicoe protested, but, in obedience to orders, succeeded Callaghan, with his flag in the battleship Iron Duke, and was promoted to admiral on 4 August 1914. He appointed Rear-Admiral Charles Madden [75] (who had married a younger sister of Lady Jellicoe) as his Chief of Staff and introduced a set of detailed War Orders, to ensure that his captains conformed exactly to his carefully planned tactics.
Famously described by Churchill as “the only man who could lose the war in an afternoon”, Jellicoe was determined not to take needless risks. The fact that his opponent in command of the German High Seas Fleet was subject to similar constraints meant that the two only met once, at the battle of Jutland (31 May–1 June 1916), the greatest encounter between ironclad fleets in the history of naval warfare. Although the High Seas Fleet turned for home, it was not destroyed and lost fewer ships and men than did the larger Grand Fleet. British dominance of the North Sea, and with it the naval blockade of Germany, remained in place, but British public opinion was disappointed that Jutland was not another Trafalgar. Controversy between the supporters of Jellicoe and those of Vice-Admiral David Beatty [69], who commanded the Battle-cruiser Fleet in this action, continued for many years, with the former’s prudence (or excessive caution) being contrasted with the latter’s daring (or rashness).
In December 1916 Jellicoe handed over command of the Grand Fleet to Beatty and became First Sea Lord and Chief of the Naval Staff, shortly before Sir Edward Carson took office as First Lord of the Admiralty on the formation of David Lloyd George’s first Cabinet. The most urgent task was to deal with the growing menace of attacks on Allied merchant shipping by German submarines. Jellicoe took a gloomy view and declared that nothing more could be done to defeat the U-boats. He was initially opposed to introducing a convoy system, on the grounds that the Grand Fleet needed all the available escorts, that merchant captains could not keep station and that the ports could not deal with large numbers of ships arriving at the same time. Nevertheless, under political pressure, he began to investigate the idea and, after Lloyd George’s personal intervention, put it into successful operation in June 1917. He withstood Lloyd George’s proposals for attacks on enemy-held coasts, or any other plans that would divert resources from the Grand Fleet and the protection of trade. His outright refusal to countenance any such imaginative schemes brought him the appellation “the granite sailor” or “Silent Jack”.
In July 1917, Lloyd George appointed Sir Eric Geddes, an eminent railwayman (previously appointed a temporary major general and vice-admiral to give the Army and Navy the supposed benefit of a businessman’s approach to planning large-scale supply and transport operations) as First Lord in Carson’s place. When Jellicoe maintained his opposition to any change in naval strategy, Geddes attempted to outflank him by creating a new post of Deputy First Sea Lord, filled by Admiral Wemyss [71] from the Mediterranean theatre.
Jellicoe’s calm, analytical approach to any question led to clashes with Geddes (nicknamed “Goddes” from his imperious style), who was steeped in the frenetic ways of the commercial world. Geddes disliked being reminded by Jellicoe that, constitutionally, the First Lord was the colleague rather than the master of the other lords commissioners of the Admiralty. Their final disagreement was over the future of Vice-Admiral Reginald Bacon, commanding the Dover Patrol and, as such, held responsible for failing to close the Channel to German ships and submarines. When Jellicoe refused to dismiss Bacon, he was himself abruptly dismissed on Christmas Eve 1917, a date chosen by Geddes to ensure that, as there were no newspapers on Christmas Day, there would be immediate opportunity for adverse publicity.
Jellicoe was raised to the peerage as Viscount Jellicoe of Scapa Flow in January 1918 and promoted admiral of the fleet on 3 April 1919. He was Governor-General of New Zealand from 1920 to 1924 and was created Earl Jellicoe in June 1925. From 1928 to 1932 he was president of the British Legion, in succession to Field Marshal Earl Haig. He died of pneumonia at his home in Kensington, London, on 20 November 1935 and was buried in St Paul’s Cathedral. His peerage was inherited by his son, who served with distinction during the Second World War in the 1st Special Air Service and Special Boat Service Regiments and later held high political office, including that of Minister of Defence for the Navy.
JERVIS
Sir JOHN, 1st Earl of St Vincent, GCB (1735–1823) [12]
John Jervis, the second son of an impoverished barrister-at-law, was born in his family home at Meaford, Staffordshire, on 9 January 1735. His mother, Elizabeth, was the sister of Sir Thomas Parker, a prominent Whig politician and a distant relation of Lord Anson [5]. Jervis attended a grammar school at Burton-on-Trent until 1747, when his father was appointed solicitor to the Admiralty and treasurer of Greenwich Hospital, and moved to Greenwich with his family. On 4 Janu
ary 1749 Jervis was entered as an able seaman in the 4th-rate Gloucester, in which he served in the West Indies until 25 June 1752. He was then appointed a midshipman in the 4th-rate Severn, from which he transferred to the 6th-rate Sphinx in June 1754 before returning home. He became lieutenant in the 1st-rate Royal George on 19 February 1755. A month later, at a time of growing international tension, he moved to the 4th-rate Nottingham in the fleet under Admiral Edward Boscawen sent to prevent French reinforcements reaching Canada. At the beginning of the Seven Years War Jervis served from March to June 1756 in the 3rd-rate Devonshire and from June to October 1756 in the 2nd-rate Prince in the Mediterranean. He transferred to Rear-Admiral Charles Saunders’ flagship, the 3rd-rate Culloden, in November 1756. While in temporary command of the 6th-rate Experiment he was in combat with a French privateer off Cape Gata, south-eastern Spain (17 March 1757). He followed Saunders to the 1st-rate St George in June 1757 and returned home in May 1758 as prize captain of Foudroyant, captured from the French.
In January 1759 Jervis joined the 2nd-rate Neptune, Saunders’ flagship as C-in-C on the North America station. He was appointed commander of the sloop Scorpion on 15 May 1759, but did not join the ship until September 1759. During the operations against Quebec he became on 4 July 1759 acting commander of the sloop Porcupine, in which he carried Major General James Wolfe up the St Lawrence to outflank the French defences. As a mark of distinction, he was sent home with the despatches. Jervis was ordered back to North America with official messages, but Scorpion sprang a leak and Jervis was forced to leave her and take passage in another ship. He joined the fleet in the Channel in May 1760 and became captain of the 5th-rate Gosport on 13 October 1760. During 1761 his ship was deployed in the North Sea and during 1762 in the North Atlantic, including the successful defence of a convoy (11 May 1762). He took part in the recapture of St John’s, Newfoundland, in 1762 and returned home at the end of hostilities in 1763.
In February 1769 Jervis was appointed to the 5th-rate Alarm and sent with treasure to the British trading community in Genoa. There two escaping galley slaves were picked up by one of his ship’s boats. The local harbour guard forced the boat’s crew to hand them over, whereupon Jervis threatened to bombard the city unless they were returned and a full apology made for the insult to the British flag. The slaves were accordingly released and the overzealous members of the guard were thrown into their own prison. Alarm returned home in May 1771, after nearly being wrecked off Marseilles (with Jervis being commended for his seamanship in saving her from disaster). From 1772 to 1775 he toured extensively in France and around the Baltic, enjoying the social aspects of his travels, but also gathering intelligence about the various coastlines and naval installations along his way.
Jervis returned to sea in June 1775, at the beginning of the American War of Independence, in command of the 3rd-rate Kent. In September 1775 he was appointed to Foudroyant, which had been taken into the Navy as a 3rd-rate. He was at the battle of Ushant (27 July 1778), the relief of Gibraltar (January 1780 and March 1781) and in an action off Brest, where he captured the French 74-gun Pégase in a single-ship duel (19 April 1782). He was slightly wounded in this engagement and awarded the KB in recognition of his victory. Sir John Jervis took part in a further relief of Gibraltar in October 1782 and was in a minor action off Cape Spartel (20 October 1782). He then returned with the fleet to England, where he married his cousin Martha, daughter of the influential Sir Thomas Parker. With the end of the war in sight, he entered Parliament in January 1783 as Member for Launceston. In the elections of 1784 he became Member for Yarmouth. He continued to represent this borough until 1790, when he became Member for Chipping Wycombe, and retained his seat, supporting the Whigs, until 1794.
Jervis was promoted to rear-admiral of the Blue on 24 September 1787 and briefly flew his flag in the 3rd-rate Carnatic. In 1790, when a fleet was mobilized at the time of a threatened war with Spain over the possession of Nootka Sound (Vancouver, British Columbia), he again briefly commanded a squadron, with his flag in Prince. He became a rear-admiral of the White on 21 September 1790 and vice-admiral of the Blue on 1 February 1793 (the same day that the French Republic declared war on the United Kingdom). Jervis was appointed C-in-C, West Indies, in the autumn of 1793. With his flag in the 2nd-rate Boyne, he took part in combined operations in the capture of the French islands of Martinique, St Lucia and Guadeloupe during the spring of 1794. By the end of the year a French force succeeded in recovering Guadeloupe, where the British garrison had been reduced by yellow fever. Jervis attempted to support the surviving troops, but was driven off by French coastal artillery. He gave up his command on medical grounds in November 1794 and returned home to be promoted to admiral of the Blue on 1 June 1795.
Jervis was nominated as C-in-C, Mediterranean, but his appointment was delayed by a vote of censure moved by the West India interest in the House of Commons for having levied a contribution on merchandise from Martinique. It was therefore not until November 1795 that he sailed in the 6th-rate Lively to join the fleet off Corsica, at that time a British possession. His arrival, noted Captain Horatio Nelson, was “to the joy of some, and the sorrow of others”. He continued the blockade of Toulon, while at the same time tightening the lax discipline he found in the fleet. In the spring of 1796 Bonaparte began his conquest of Italy and, in October, Spain declared war on the United Kingdom. By November 1796, with the loss of his bases in Italy and Corsica, Jervis was forced to leave the Mediterranean and establish himself at Lisbon. After putting heart into the Portuguese government and refitting his ships, he put to sea again in mid-January 1797, declaring that “inaction in the Tagus will make us all cowards”. On 14 February 1797, off Cape St Vincent, south-west Portugal, with his flag in the 1st-rate Victory, he encountered a Spanish fleet. As the mist lifted and his captain of the fleet counted the increasing odds from “There are eighteen sail of the line, Sir John” up to “There are twenty-seven sail of the line, Sir John, near double our own”, he merely acknowledged each report with “Very well, Sir” until finally declaring, “Enough, Sir! No more of that! The die is cast and if there are fifty sail of the line, I will go through them.” In the ensuing battle, where Captain Horatio Nelson was praised by Jervis for his initiative in disregarding the Admiralty’s standard Fighting Instructions, four Spanish ships were taken. Although the rest escaped to Cadiz, the immediate threat of their joining the French fleet to cover an invasion of Ireland was removed. Jervis’s victory not only saved the country but also the government, which showed its gratitude by raising him to the peerage as Earl of St Vincent on 23 June 1797.
St Vincent maintained his blockade of Cadiz throughout the next two years. During the summer of 1797, as news of the mutinies at Portsmouth and the Nore reached his fleet, he enforced the sternest discipline. He was asked to pardon one offender on the grounds of previous good character, but responded that he was glad to demonstrate that good characters as well as bad would be hung for sedition. He grew unpopular with many of his subordinates and his second-in-command, Rear-Admiral Sir John Orde (whom he had superseded in favour of his junior, Rear-Admiral Horatio Nelson) asked for St Vincent to be tried by court-martial for cruelty and oppression. In May 1798 St Vincent ordered Nelson to report on French activity at Toulon and, a fortnight later, when the Cabinet decided that a significant force should return to the Mediterranean, sent his ten finest ships to join him. These made up the squadron with which Nelson subsequently won the battle of the Nile (1–2 August 1798). Afterwards St Vincent refused to allow damaged ships to return home and insisted that they refit at Gibraltar. Nevertheless, he could display a human side. One young English lady, the seventeen-year-old Miss Elizabeth Wynne, evacuated with her family from Italy by the Navy, wrote of him as a gallant, friendly old man, for whom she sang duets with her sister after dinner in Victory. She noted in her correspondence “The old gentleman is very partial to kisses … and always obliges all the gentlemen that are present to kiss us”. (Betsey Wynne, with her £8,
000 a year, was soon snapped up by one of Jervis’ captains, the future Vice-Admiral Sir Thomas Fremantle, and became the ancestress of a line of admirals).
St Vincent was promoted to admiral of the White on 14 February 1799. He resigned the Mediterranean command on medical grounds in June 1799 and set up home at Rochetts, near South Weald, Brentwood, Essex, where he gave his name to St Vincent’s Hamlet. In October he was challenged to a duel by Sir John Orde, who had been denied a court-martial, though the Admiralty had sent St Vincent a rebuke. The King forbade St Vincent to accept the challenge and both parties were bound over to keep the peace. At the end of the year St Vincent was given command of the fleet in the Channel in place of the tired and ailing Lord Bridport (Sir Alexander Hood). St Vincent himself was old and sick, suffering from the dropsy, but accepted the command declaring it mattered little whether he died on shore or at sea. The Hood family had long been enemies of St Vincent and encouraged the second-in-command, Sir Alan Gardner, to lodge a strong protest at being superseded. St Vincent’s reputation as a disciplinarian had preceded him, and his appointment was greeted by his new subordinates with horror. Standing orders, previously ignored, were thereafter fully enforced. No officer on blockade duty was allowed to sleep ashore, even when driven by storms to shelter off the English coast. No captain could take his ship to a dockyard without permission. St Vincent, who claimed in every other respect, including dress, to pattern himself on Earl Howe [9] differed from him by maintaining a close blockade of the French bases even in bad weather. Despite the subterfuges of his captains and the indignation of his officers’ wives, he kept his fleet at sea, with his flag in the 1st-rate Royal George, throughout the summer of 1800 and the winter of 1800–01. On 19 February 1801, after Pitt’s ministry had fallen over the question of Catholic emancipation, St Vincent left his exhausted but efficient fleet to become First Lord of the Admiralty in a new Cabinet led by Henry Addington.
British Admirals of the Fleet Page 22
