British Admirals of the Fleet

by T A Heathcote

  OGLE

  Sir Chaloner, KB (1681–1750) [2]

  Chaloner Ogle came from a medical family, with one of his brothers a physician in Marlborough’s army and another a physician in the fleet. He joined the Navy as a volunteer by Order, or “King’s Letter Boy” in July 1697 and served during the War of the League of Augsburg successively in the 3rd-rates Yarmouth and Restoration, the 4th-rate Worcester and the 3rd-rate Suffolk. Following the outbreak of the War of the Spanish Succession he was appointed lieutenant of the 3rd-rate Royal Oak on 29 April 1702 and became commander of the sloop San Antonio (captured two years previously from the infamous pirate Captain William Kidd) on 24 November 1703. Ogle became captain of the 6th-rate Deal Castle in April 1705, but on 3 July 1706 was captured in an encounter with three French ships off Ostend. After being exchanged, he was acquitted by a court-martial and given command of the 6th-rate Queenborough. He was appointed captain with command of the 5th-rate Tartar on 14 March 1708 and served in the Mediterranean, where he took several valuable prizes before the end of hostilities in 1713. When British interest turned to the long-running Great Northern War, Ogle served in the Baltic, commanding successively the 4th-rates Plymouth and Worcester.

  In March 1719 Ogle was given command of the 4th-rate Swallow, in which he served on trade protection duties in the North Atlantic and the Mediterranean prior to being sent to the coast of West Africa in 1721. Despite being short-handed through sickness (fifty of his original crew had died and a hundred were in hospital), he sailed in November 1721 in search of two pirate vessels under Bartholomew Roberts, a notorious buccaneer who had taken some four hundred ships in the previous four years. Ogle encountered him near Cape Lopez on 5 February 1722. When Roberts sent one of his ships to investigate, Ogle pretended to flee, before turning and capturing the pirate after a brisk fight. He then returned, flying the French flag and giving the impression that Swallow was a captured prize. Ogle closed with Roberts’s ship, Royal Fortune, and hoisted his true colours before firing a broadside in which Roberts was killed. 254 prisoners were taken, of whom sixty were later hanged at Whydah (Ouidah), Benin. Ogle was awarded the KB in April 1723, the only naval officer to be so honoured specifically for anti-piracy activities. His subsequent wealth was said to have come not only from his extensive prize-money but also from a large quantity of gold dust found in Roberts’s cabin. Sir Chaloner Ogle was subsequently given command of the 3rd-rates Burford, in the Channel, in 1729, and Edinburgh, in the Mediterranean, in 1732. Later in 1732 he became the senior naval officer at Jamaica, as a commodore, with his broad pendant in the 4th-rate Kingston.

  In June 1739 Ogle was appointed to the 4th-rate Augusta, which became his flagship when he was promoted rear-admiral of the Blue on 11 July 1739. Increasing tension between Spain and the United Kingdom led to the outbreak in October 1739 of the War of Jenkins’s Ear, soon overtaken by a wider conflict, the War of the Austrian Succession. Ogle served during 1739 with the Mediterranean and as third in command of the fleet in the Channel in 1740. At the end of 1741 he went with reinforcements to the West Indies, where the local C-in-C, Vice-Admiral Edward Vernon (known as “Old Grog” from his grogram boat-cloak, and the initiator of the practice of issuing diluted rum, thereafter called “grog”), had previously captured Porto Bello with six ships. Earlier the Duke of Newcastle, the secretary of state responsible for sending reinforcements to the fleet in the West Indies, had replied to a questioner in Parliament “You ask me why does not Sir Chaloner Ogle sail? I answer because he is not ready. If you ask another question, why is he not ready, to that I cannot answer.” Ogle reached Jamaica in January 1742, but the campaign proved a disaster for the British. There were quarrels between the senior military and naval officers, with Ogle himself found guilty, by a civil jury, of assaulting the Governor of Jamaica. In October 1742, when Vernon was recalled, Ogle (rear-admiral of the Red since the previous March) again became C-in-C, Jamaica. With neither the British or the Spanish fleets able to spare ships for large-scale operations in the West Indies, naval activity was confined to trade-protection and commerce raiding.

  Ogle was promoted to vice-admiral of the Blue on 11 August 1743 and admiral of the Blue on 23 June 1744. He returned home in the summer of 1745 and presided at the courts-martial of officers charged with misconduct at the battle of Hyeres, Toulon (11 February 1744). Ogle became admiral of the White on 15 July 1747 and admiral of the fleet on 19 July 1749. He sat as Member of Parliament for Rochester from 24 November 1746 until he died, in London, on 11 April 1750. He was married, but died without issue.

  OGLE

  Sir Charles, 2nd Baronet (1775–1858) [21]

  Charles Ogle, born on 24 May 1775, was the eldest son of Sir Chaloner Ogle, later admiral of the Red, and a grandnephew of Admiral of the Fleet Sir Chaloner Ogle [2]. He entered the Navy in 1788 as captain’s servant and served on the Coast of West Africa station successively in the 5th-rate Adventure and the 4th-rate Medusa, before becoming a midshipman in the 3rd-rate Alcide at Portsmouth in September 1791. He then served off Halifax, Nova Scotia, and in the Channel, successively in the 6th-rate Winchelsea, the 3rd-rate Edgar and the 2nd-rate Boyne. After the outbreak of the French Revolutionary War he was appointed on 14 November 1793 lieutenant in the 5th-rate Woolwich in the West Indies. In December 1793 Ogle moved to the 3rd-rate Vengeance and in January 1794 returned to Boyne, then flagship of Sir John Jervis [12], C-in-C in the West Indies. In the spring of 1794 he took part in the British capture of Martinique and Guadeloupe, where he led a storming-party. He was then briefly in command of the 5th-rate Assurance, prior to being appointed commander of the sloop Avenger on 21 May 1794. When Jervis became C-in-C of the Mediterranean Fleet in November 1795 Ogle followed him to become successively commander of the sloop Peterel and, on 11 January 1796, captain of the 5th-rate Minerve. During 1797 he moved to the 5th-rate Meleager and was commended by Jervis for his part in the blockade of Cadiz. He next commanded successively the 5th-rate Greyhound, with which he made several prizes, and the 5th-rate Egyptienne, where he was awarded a gold medal by the Ottoman government for supporting the British landing in Egypt in March 1801.

  After peace with France was declared by the Treaty of Amiens (27 March 1802) Ogle married Charlotte, daughter of General the Honourable Thomas Gage, governor of Massachusetts at the beginning of the American War of Independence and sister of the future Sir William Gage [23]. Hostilities were renewed in May 1803, but Ogle did not return to sea until April 1805, when he was given command of the 5th-rate Unité, fitting out for the Mediterranean. In June 1806 he was appointed to the royal yacht Princess Augusta, where he remained for the rest of the war. Ogle commanded the 3rd-rate Ramillies in the Channel from August to November 1815, the 2nd-rate Malta at Plymouth from November 1815 to January 1816 and the 3rd-rate Rivoli at Portsmouth from January to September 1816. After succeeding to his father’s baronetcy and estate Sir Charles Ogle became rear-admiral of the Blue on 12 August 1819, rear-admiral of the White on 19 July 1812 and rear-admiral of the Red on 27 May 1825. His wife died in 1814, leaving him with a young family of a son and two daughters, and in 1820, he married Letitia Burroughs, the daughter of a baronet.

  Ogle was C-in-C on the North America station from April 1827 to July 1830 and became vice-admiral of the Blue on 22 July 1830. The second Lady Ogle died in 1832 and Ogle married in 1834 Mary, Lady Thorold, who herself had been twice widowed. He became vice-admiral of the Red on 10 January 1837, admiral of the Blue on 23 November 1841, admiral of the White in November 1846 and admiral of the Red on 26 June 1847. From 1845 to 1848 he was C-in-C, Portsmouth. He became admiral of the fleet on 8 December 1857 and died at Tunbridge Wells on 16 June 1858.

  OLIVER

  Sir HENRY FRANCIS, GCB, GCMG, CVO (1865–1965) [78]

  Henry Oliver, the fifth child in the family of seven sons and three daughters of a prosperous Border farmer, was born at Kelso, Roxburghshire, on 22 January 1865. He joined the Navy as a cadet in the training ship Britannia in 1878 and was appoin
ted to the battleship Agincourt, flagship of the second-in-command of the Channel Squadron, in September 1880, with promotion to midshipman on 21 January 1881. In March 1882 he joined the corvette Amethyst on the south-east coast of America and remained there until becoming an acting sub-lieutenant on 21 January 1885 at the beginning of his promotion courses. Oliver was appointed to the battleship Triumph, flagship of the Pacific station, in October 1886 with promotion to lieutenant on 30 June 1888. From April 1889 to February 1894 he served in the survey vessel Stork and subsequently qualified as a navigating officer. He was then appointed navigating lieutenant of the cruiser Wallaroo, assigned to the protection of seaborne trade in Australasian waters, from which he returned home to become navigating lieutenant of the cruiser Blake, in the Channel Squadron, in January 1898. At the end of 1898 he was turned over to the cruiser Niobe, in which he was detached to the Cape of Good Hope during the Anglo-Boer South African War, with promotion to commander on 31 December 1899. In September 1900 Oliver was appointed navigating commander in the battleship Majestic, flagship of Sir Arthur Wilson [59], C-in-C of the Channel Squadron, and contributed to Wilson’s reputation as a skilful fleet handler. He was promoted to captain on 30 June 1903.

  As part of the training reforms introduced by Sir John Fisher [58] as second naval lord, Oliver was appointed the first captain of a new school for navigators at Portsmouth, initially set up in the old cruiser Mercury and then ashore, in Dryad. From February 1907 to November 1908 he commanded the armoured cruiser Achilles in the Home Fleet. He then became Naval Assistant to the First Sea Lord, where he served under Fisher until 1910 and subsequently under Wilson until 1912. He was then given command of the new battleship Thunderer before returning to the Admiralty in 1913 as Director of Naval Intelligence, with promotion to rear-admiral on 3 December 1913. In June 1914 he married Beryl Carnegy White, of Lour, Angus.

  Soon after the outbreak of the First World War in August 1914 Oliver went to Antwerp in advance of the naval brigade despatched by Winston Churchill, First Lord of the Admiralty. During September, with Belgian support, Oliver blew up the engine-rooms of thirty-eight German merchantmen stranded in Antwerp at the outbreak of hostilities. The Germans reached Antwerp in October 1914. Churchill landed in person and offered to lead its defence, a proposal received by his Cabinet colleagues with ill-concealed merriment. Most of the British naval brigade was forced into internment in the neutral Netherlands. Oliver served briefly as Churchill’s Naval Secretary before becoming Chief of the War Staff at the Admiralty in November 1914.

  Oliver remained there under Sir Henry Jackson [70], who succeeded Fisher as First Sea Lord in May 1915. He was one of the few officers over whom Jackson considered it unnecessary to exercise close personal control and was thus in charge of the Admiralty’s part in the conduct of the battle of Jutland (31 May–1 June 1916). In June 1916 he was awarded the KCB. When Sir John Jellicoe [68] became First Sea Lord and Chief of the Naval Staff in December 1916 Sir Henry Oliver was appointed to the new post of Deputy Chief of the Naval Staff, with a seat on the Board of Admiralty. Oliver’s own reluctance to delegate, a characteristic he shared with Jackson, Jellicoe and most other senior officers of his day, placed him under steadily increasing strain. In January 1918 he left the Admiralty and commanded the First Battle-cruiser Squadron, with his flag in the battle-cruiser Repulse, from then until May 1919, when the Grand Fleet dispersed after the end of the war. On 1 December 1919 he was promoted to vice-admiral and appointed C-in-C, Home Fleet, subsequently combined with the Reserve fleet.

  Oliver became Second Sea Lord in 1920. In 1922 the Committee on National Expenditure, headed by the eminent businessman, Sir Eric Geddes (a former First Lord of the Admiralty), recommended large-scale reductions in the number of public employees. As the member for personnel, Oliver was responsible for implementing the naval element of these cuts, as well as those resulting from the reduction of the fleet by the Washington Naval Treaty. He was promoted to admiral on 1 November 1923 and, after declining the appointment of C-in-C, Portsmouth, went back to sea as C-in-C, Atlantic Fleet, from 1924 to 1927. He was promoted to admiral of the fleet on 21 January 1928 and retired in 1933. He played no operational part in the Second World War, though he gave much encouragement to the Royal National Lifeboat Association and supported his wife, created Dame Beryl Oliver, in her London-based war work with the British Red Cross Society. He died at their home in London on 15 October 1965.

  OSWALD

  Sir JOHN JULIAN ROBERTSON, GCB (1933-) [114]

  Julian Oswald, son of Captain George Hamilton Oswald, Royal Navy, of Newmore, Invergordon, Ross-shire, was born on 11 August 1933. After attending Beaudesert Park School, Minchinhampton, Gloucestershire, he joined the Navy as a cadet at the Royal Naval College, Dartmouth, on 1 May 1947. After sea training in the cruiser Devonshire, he became a midshipman on 1 January 1952 and served in the battleship Vanguard and the frigate Verulam. He was promoted to sub-lieutenant on 1 May 1953 and, after attending Junior Officers’ courses, joined the aircraft carrier Theseus, flagship of the Training Squadron in the Home Fleet, in February 1955. He subsequently served between 1957 and 1959 in the cruiser Newfoundland and the minesweeper Jewel. In 1958 Oswald married Veronica (“Roni”) Thompson, with whom he later had two sons and three daughters. During 1959 he joined the gunnery training school Excellent, where he qualified as a gunnery specialist. From 1960 until early 1962 he was in the aircraft carrier Victorious, prior to being given command of the minesweeper Yarnton in April 1962. He was promoted to lieutenant-commander on 1 June 1963 and qualified at the Royal Naval Staff College, Greenwich, during 1964. In 1965 he returned to Excellent as the Air Weapons Officer.

  Oswald returned to sea in September 1966 as first lieutenant of the frigate Naiad. He was appointed to the Ministry of Defence in August 1968 in the Directorate of Naval Plans, with promotion to commander on 31 December 1968. From January 1971 to 1972 he commanded the frigate Bacchante, after which he returned to the MOD to join the office of the Assistant Chief of the Defence Staff. He was promoted to captain on 31 December 1973 and remained at the MOD until the end of 1975. During 1976 he attended the Royal College of Defence Studies, London. Oswald commanded the guided weapons destroyer Newcastle from January 1977 to early 1979, when he joined the Royal Naval Presentation Team. He served as Captain of the Britannia Royal Naval College, Dartmouth, from 1980 until his promotion to rear-admiral on 2 September 1982 and then became Assistant Chief of the Defence Staff (Programmes) at the MOD, followed by appointment as ACDS (Policy and Nuclear) in 1985. From 1985 to 1987 he was Flag Officer, Third Flotilla and Commander, Anti-Submarine Warfare, Striking Fleet, with promotion to vice-admiral on 3 January 1986 and the award of the KCB in 1987. Sir Julian Oswald was promoted to admiral on 29 May 1987 and was between 1987 and 1989 C-in-C, Fleet, and NATO C-in-C, Channel (CINCHAN) and Eastern Atlantic Area (CINCEASTLANT).

  Oswald was First Sea Lord from May 1989 to 2 March 1992, when he was promoted to admiral of the fleet and went on half-pay. During this period he had to deal with changes in defence policy arising from the collapse of the Soviet Union and also with the brief Gulf War following the Iraqi occupation of Kuwait. He was also responsible for the then controversial decision that members of the Women’s Royal Naval Service (whose unofficial punning motto had previously been “Never at Sea”) could serve in sea-going ships. For many years he was President of the FRINTON (Former Russian Interpreters of the Navy) Society, originally composed of reservists who had learned the language during their National Service after the Second World War. After leaving the MOD Sir Julian Oswald undertook a variety of business and charitable activities, with especial emphasis on maritime benevolent and historical interests. He published The Royal Navy-Today and Tomorrow and numerous articles on strategy and defence policy. In 1994 he became President of the Sea Cadet Association. From his home in the Meon Valley, Hampshire, he remains active in all his sporting, family and other interests.

  PARKER

  Sir PETER,
1st Baronet (1721–1811) [10]

  Peter Parker, born in 1721, joined the Navy under command of his father, Captain, later Rear-Admiral, Christopher Parker. He was appointed a commander on 17 March 1735 and is thought to have served in the fleet sent to the West Indies under Admiral Edward Vernon on the outbreak of war with Spain (“the War of Jenkins’s Ear”) in 1739. This was soon overtaken by a wider European conflict, the War of the Austrian Succession, in which he served in the Mediterranean, first in the 2nd-rate Russell and then in the bomb vessel Firedrake. In January 1744 he joined the 2nd-rate Barfleur, flagship of Rear-Admiral William Rowley [6], in which he took part in the battle of Hyeres, Toulon (11 February 1744). Parker joined the 2nd-rate Neptune, flagship of Vice-Admiral Richard Lestock, in March 1744, and subsequently returned home. He was promoted to become captain of the 6th-rate Margate on 6 May 1747 and spent the winter of 1747–48 on trade protection duty in the North Sea and the Channel. In the closing stages of the war Margate was re-deployed to the Mediterranean before returning home in April 1749. Parker remained ashore until 1755, when, with another French war approaching, he was given the 5th-rate Woolwich and deployed to the North Sea for trade protection duty.

  In the Seven Years’ War Parker served with Woolwich during 1757 in the West Indies. He was appointed to the 3rd-rate Bristol in January 1759 and took part in the unsuccessful British attack on Martinique, followed by the capture of Guadeloupe in May 1759. He then became captain of the 3rd-rate Buckingham with which he returned home in 1760. During 1761 he served in the capture of Belle-Ile, off the west coast of France and, from August 1762 to the end of the war in 1763, commanded the 3rd-rate Terrible. He was given a knighthood in 1772.