The Treaty of Amiens (27 March 1802) brought a short-lived peace with France and allowed St Vincent to turn his attention to the Navy’s administration. He condemned the abuse of patronage in the promotion of officers, attacked the corrupt practices of officials and defence contractors and, in December 1802, organized a royal commission to investigate further the large-scale frauds he had uncovered. Nevertheless, in his enthusiasm for achieving the peace dividend sought by the new Cabinet, he more than halved the number of ships in commission, reduced the number of seamen from 130,000 to 70,000 and placed hundreds of officers on half-pay. Highly skilled workmen were discharged from the dockyards. Surplus stores were sold to the French Navy, which was taking advantage of the peace to obtain the supplies that years of blockade had denied them.
The renewal of war with France in May 1803 was soon followed by the threat of invasion. St Vincent, like almost every other British admiral, saw little need for the large-scale home defence measures that the government then put in hand. He regarded the Sea Fencibles (raised to guard dockyards and shore installations) and coastal gunboats (built to protect estuaries and harbours) as a useless diversion of manpower and resources from the main fleet. With the blockade of French coasts once more in force, he declared that he did not say the French could not invade, only that they could not do so by sea. Although events justified this confidence, his political opponents (especially those who had suffered from his purge of the dockyards) attacked him both for neglecting coast defence and for failing to build new ships of the line. Sea officers criticized him for enforcing, as a Cabinet minister, the same penny-pinching economies that he had condemned as an admiral. When Addington’s ministry fell in May 1804 St Vincent was replaced at the Admiralty by Henry Dundas, Viscount Melville, the close friend and ally of Pitt, who had returned to office as Prime Minister.
St Vincent was offered command of the fleet in the Channel, but refused to serve while Pitt was Prime Minister, so that it was not until after the latter’s death in January 1806 that he again returned to sea. He was promoted to the newly created rank of admiral of the Red on 9 November 1805 and in March 1806, as acting admiral of the fleet, resumed his old command. With his flag in the 1st-rate Hibernia, he joined the blockade of Brest, where he remained (with a brief diversion to Lisbon to counter the threat of a French invasion) until the fleet withdrew to home waters for the winter. There, in deference to his age and health, he was allowed to live on shore until April 1807, when, with the fall of Grenville’s “Ministry of all the Talents”, he gave up the command he had only accepted under ministerial pressure.
St Vincent took little further part in public affairs. In January 1815, when the Order of the Bath was reorganized in the post-war honours, he became a GCB. To mark the accession of George IV, he was made admiral of the fleet on 19 July 1821, the first occasion that more than one officer at a time held that rank. St Vincent died on 14 March 1823 and was buried in his family mausoleum in the churchyard of St Michael’s, Stone, Staffordshire. His countess predeceased him in 1816, leaving no children, and his earldom became extinct. His name was given to Jervis Bay, New South Wales, Australia.
JOHN
Sir CASPAR, GCB (1903–1984) [104]
Caspar John, the second of the five sons of the famous artist Augustus John and his wife Ida, was born at their home in Fitzroy Street, London, on 22 March 1903. Ida John died in 1907, and her husband’s bohemian lifestyle meant that his many children had little conventional education until 1909, when her sons went to Dane Court Preparatory School, Parkstone, Dorset. There Caspar John won a school prize, for which the award was a copy of Jane’s Fighting Ships, and this, together with a desire for a more structured and conventional way of life, led him to seek a career in the Navy. From September 1916 to December 1920 he was a cadet at the Royal Naval Colleges at Osborne and Dartmouth, from which he was promoted to midshipman on 15 January 1921, and appointed to the battleship Centurion in the Mediterranean Fleet in February 1921. He transferred to the battleship Iron Duke, flagship of the Mediterranean Fleet, in April 1921, and to the destroyer Spear in August 1922. During the Chanak crisis of 1922 he served with the fleet in the Dardanelles. John became an acting sublieutenant on 15 May 1923 at the beginning of his promotion courses and returned to the Mediterranean to join the aircraft carrier Hermes in December 1924. He then decided to specialize as a naval aviator, at that time an unconventional choice. Most senior naval officers of the day believed in the supremacy of the battleship, although opposing the arrangement whereby the Fleet Air Arm was part of the Royal Air Force.
In August 1925 John joined the RAF Flying Training School, Netheravon, where he was promoted to lieutenant on 30 August 1925 and qualified as a pilot in 1926. From April to December 1926 he served at RAF Leuchars, Fife, and, like all naval officers at that time on flying duties, was granted a RAF commission of equivalent rank to his naval one. He then joined Hermes on the China station, based at Hong Kong. He remained in Hermes until 1929, including a brief return home to refit at the end of 1927. Despite a number of accidents, he remained an enthusiastic aviator and in 1930 bought his own civil aeroplane, an Avro Avian, in which he took part in three successive Royal Aero Club annual King’s Cup races. In April 1930 he joined No.450 Flight in the aircraft carrier Furious in the Atlantic Fleet. He also flew from the aircraft carriers Argus and Courageous and irritated the authorities by landing his Avian on the flight deck of the latter.
In January 1931 John reverted to general service and relinquished his RAF commission on being appointed to the battleship Malaya in the Atlantic Fleet. He returned to flying duties in December 1931 as a seaplane pilot in the cruiser Exeter in the Home Fleet (the renamed Atlantic Fleet). He remained there, with a deployment to the West Indies in February 1932 and a parachute course in August 1932, until promoted to lieutenant-commander on 30 August 1933. From October 1933 to the summer of 1934 he was employed in the battle-cruiser Renown, testing the Supermarine Walrus flying-boat and assessing different types of ship-borne aircraft.
In August 1934 John was appointed to the aircraft carrier Courageous as Staff Officer (Operations) to the Rear-Admiral commanding aircraft carriers in the Home Fleet. In the summer of 1935 as international tension increased over the question of British and French opposition to the Italian invasion of Ethiopia, Courageous was sent to the Mediterranean. When she returned home at the end of 1935, John remained in Egypt, appointed to the aircraft carrier Glorious but based ashore with 825 (Naval Air) Squadron. He was promoted to commander on 31 December 1936. In January 1937 he was appointed to the Air Materiel division of the Admiralty and was involved in the discussions leading to Inskip Award of July 1937, by which control of the carrier-borne Fleet Air Arm was transferred from the RAF to the Navy. In the spring of 1938 he sailed to the United States as part of a procurement mission to the US aircraft industry and in June 1939 became commander of the cruiser York on the America and West Indies station.
After the outbreak of the Second World War in September 1939 John served in York in Atlantic convoys and in the Norwegian campaign of early 1940; as a convoy escort around the Cape of Good Hope to Egypt; and in the Aegean and eastern Mediterranean campaigns of late 1940 and early 1941. He was then ordered home, where he was promoted to captain on 30 June 1941 and appointed to the Ministry of Aircraft Production, Millbank, as Director-General of Naval Aircraft Development and Production. After spending November 1942 on another procurement mission to the United States, he was appointed in March 1943 naval air attaché at the British Embassy, Washington, and naval air representative in the Admiralty delegation to the Joint Chiefs of Staff. As such he played an important part in obtaining naval aircraft and spares from American manufacturers and in arranging the training of British naval aircrews and maintenance personnel at United States and Canadian air stations.
John returned home in August 1944 to command the aircraft carrier Pretoria Castle, a converted liner used for aircraft evaluation trials. He renewed his friendship with, an
d then married, the New Zealand-born Mary Vanderpump, who had spent the war first as an ambulance driver in the London Blitz and then in the crew of a canal narrowboat. They later had two daughters and a son. In June 1945 he was given command of the new light aircraft carrier Ocean, intended to serve as a nightfighter carrier with the British Pacific Fleet. The end of hostilities with Japan in August 1945 meant that the ship was instead deployed to the Mediterranean, where John, a strict disciplinarian, continued to train his war-weary crews at full intensity. He spent 1947 at the Imperial Defence College, London and in January 1948 was given command of the Naval Air Station, Lossiemouth. He subsequently returned to the Admiralty, first as Deputy Chief of Naval Air Equipment and then as Director of Air Organization and Training, until his promotion to rear-admiral on 8 January 1951. John was then appointed to command the Third Aircraft Carrier Squadron in the Home Fleet, with his flag in the aircraft carrier Vengeance. Later in 1951 his command became the Heavy Squadron. From 1952 to 1954 he served in the Ministry of Supply, Holborn, as Chief of Naval Air Equipment. In 1955 he became Flag Officer (Air), Home, based at the Naval Air Station, Lee-on-Solent. He was promoted to vice-admiral on 22 June 1954 and awarded the KCB in 1956.
Sir Caspar John was promoted to admiral on 10 January 1957 and became Vice-Chief of the Naval Staff in the Board of Admiralty in May 1957. His main task was to implement the large-scale reorganization and reductions in the British defence establishment that followed the Suez Canal campaign of October 1956. These included the closure of the naval base at Scapa Flow and four out of the ten naval air stations, the scrapping of every battleship save one, and the reduction of the naval reserves from 30,000 to 5,000. In April 1959 he left the Admiralty, after being nominated C-in-C, Home Fleet. Instead, in May 1959, he was appointed to succeed the ailing Sir Charles Lambe [103] as First Sea Lord in the Board headed by Lord Carrington in Harold Macmillan’s Cabinet. In response to budgetary considerations, he decided that the Mediterranean Fleet should be sacrificed and urged that as many as possible of the next generation of aircraft should be designed to meet the needs of both the Royal Air Force and the Fleet Air Arm. He was unable to secure agreement with the Air Ministry, but at the end of his time at the Admiralty he had obtained Cabinet approval for a new fleet carrier and its complement of Blackburn Buccaneer aircraft.
John had also to deal with the moves, led by Lord Mountbatten [102] as Chief of the Defence Staff, towards a unified Ministry of Defence. A man of outspoken ways and fiery temperament, John disliked Mountbatten’s personal flamboyance and his cavalier attitude towards honesty in the conduct of official business, but generally shared his views on naval policy. John was promoted to admiral of the fleet on 23 May 1962 and left office in August 1963. After going on half-pay he declined a peerage, but accepted office in a number of public bodies and charitable organizations. He later became seriously affected by vascular illness which led to the loss of his legs in 1978 and confined him, still in pain, to a wheelchair. He retired to Mousehole, Cornwall, where he died of pneumonia at Hayle, Cornwall, on 11 July 1984.
KELLY
Sir JOHN DONALD GCB, GCVO (1871–1936) [85]
John Kelly, the second son of an officer in the Royal Marine Artillery, was born on 13 July 1871 at Southsea, Hampshire, and became a cadet in the training ship Britannia in 1884. He was promoted to midshipman on 15 November 1886, with appointment to the corvette Calliope in January 1887. He joined the battleship Agincourt, flagship of the second-in-command of the Channel Squadron, in August 1888, before being turned over, with the rest of her complement, to the battleship Anson. In September 1889 he was appointed to the cruiser Volage in the Training Squadron, where he served until becoming an acting sub-lieutenant on 14 February 1891 at the beginning of his promotion courses. Kelly was promoted to lieutenant on 31 December 1893 and appointed in February 1894 to the cruiser Katoomba, for trade protection duties in Australasian waters. In November 1897 he joined the cruiser Royal Arthur, the new flagship of the Australia station. He returned home at the end of 1901 to qualify at the gunnery training school Excellent, from which in January 1902 he was appointed gunnery lieutenant in the cruiser Forte on the Cape of Good Hope and West Coast of Africa station.
Kelly was promoted to commander on 30 June 1904 and became commander of the armoured cruiser Sutlej on the China station in November 1904. After returning home in 1906 he was appointed commander of the protected cruiser Hawke in the Reserve fleet at Chatham, from where he became commander of the battleship Cornwallis in the Atlantic Fleet in January 1907. Between July 1908 and February 1911 he was commander of the Royal Naval College, Dartmouth. After being promoted to captain on 22 June 1911, he went to the Royal Naval War College in October 1912 and became captain of the school of physical training and superintendent of PT at the naval barracks, Portsmouth, in January 1913. Kelly was given command of the light cruiser Hermione in the Home Fleet in April 1914, from where he was appointed to the light cruiser Dublin in the Mediterranean Fleet in July 1914.
On the outbreak of the First World War in August 1914 Kelly, together with his younger brother Howard (then captain of the light cruiser Gloucester), sighted the German battle-cruiser Goeben, but was outpaced and lost contact. Later in the war he returned home to command successively the light cruiser Weymouth and the cruiser Devonshire. In 1915 he married Mary Kelly, of Glenyarrah, Sydney, New South Wales, and later had a daughter with her. In 1917 he was given command of the battle-cruiser Princess Royal in the Battle-cruiser Fleet, where he remained for the rest of the war. In July 1919 Kelly became Director of Operations at the Admiralty and was promoted to rear-admiral on 21 November 1921. During 1922–23, when there was a risk of war with Turkey at the time of the Chanak crisis, he commanded a naval force sent to strengthen the Mediterranean Fleet.
From 1924 to 1926 Kelly was at the Admiralty as Fourth Sea Lord and Chief of Supplies and Transport. He was promoted to vice-admiral on 25 October 1926 and from April 1927 to April 1929 was second-in-command of the Mediterranean Fleet, with his flag in the battleship Warspite and command of the First Battle Squadron. After being awarded the KCB, Sir John Kelly left the Mediterranean in April 1929 and became Admiral commanding Reserves in August 1929, with promotion to admiral on 12 December 1930. He saw no prospect of further employment and, on completing his tenure of command in August 1931, applied for transfer to the retired list, to improve the promotion prospects of younger officers.
In the summer of 1931, a financial collapse in central Europe was followed by a run on the pound. International bankers agreed to help only if the British government produced large-scale cuts in public expenditure. When the Cabinet split over the issue, the minority Labour government fell. The Prime Minister, Ramsay MacDonald, condemned by his own party for “selling out to the Tories”, formed a National government that agreed on 8 September 1931 to reduce the wages of all public sector employees. The Treasury refused to release new pay scales before Parliament was informed. The Admiralty decided that the cuts in naval pay should be a flat rate of one shilling per day. This meant that, in the case of able seamen, there would be a reduction in their pay of one quarter, compared with a seventh in that of teachers, who were the next worse off. Cuts of this scale were especially severe on married men, many of whom had furnished their homes under hire-purchase arrangements geared to existing rates of pay. Some even feared that their wives would be driven into prostitution to feed their children. On 15 September 1931 men of the Atlantic Fleet at Invergordon refused orders to put to sea. This caused another run on the pound, so forcing the United Kingdom off the gold standard (to which it was destined never to return) six days later.
George V [64], a former naval officer, in an echo of Lord Howe [9] and the Spithead mutiny of 1797, proposed that Kelly (who was known to be trusted by the lower deck) should be given command of the Atlantic Fleet. Austen Chamberlain, who had become First Lord of the Admiralty at the end of August 1931, persuaded the Cabinet that the unfair flat-rate cuts should be replaced b
y a general ten per-cent reduction, as was the case with most other public sector employees. The First Sea Lord, Sir Frederick Field, ordered the ships to disperse to their home ports. Kelly insisted that the leaders of the mutiny should be drafted out of their ships before he took command at the beginning of October 1931, with the new title of C-in-C, Home Fleet (the Atlantic Fleet renamed), with his flag in the battleship Nelson. He visited every ship and spoke in plain language to the men, promising that their grievances would be heard with sympathy, but that indiscipline or disrespect to officers would not be tolerated. Some senior officers condemned him as a “Popularity Jack”, but he succeeded in reestablishing good order in the fleet and so calmed the mood of national anxiety. After listening to his men’s complaints, he reported that confidence would not be restored as long as the existing Board of Admiralty remained in office. Kelly left the Home Fleet in September 1933 and served as C-in-C, Portsmouth, from January 1935 until July 1936. One day before leaving office on his sixty-fifth birthday, he was promoted to admiral of the fleet on 12 July 1936. He retired to his home at Greenham Hall, Taunton, Somerset, and died in London on 4 November 1936. He was buried at sea.
British Admirals of the Fleet Page 23
