The British Admirals of the Fleet, 1734-1995, A Biographical Dictionary (review)

This well-researched and presented compilation is timely and useful for two reasons. The work is invaluable as a source of reference for the careers, services and achievements of most, if not all, of the Royal Navy's more important commanders from 1734 to the decision by the John Major government no longer to reward peacetime Chiefs of the Naval Staff with promotions to the rank of Admiral of the Fleet. (They may be offered a Life Peerage of membership of the House of Lords instead.) Secondly, the entries include material on officers now forgotten but who were of very great importance in their day, for examples Geoffrey Phipps Hornby who led four battleships in a storm to Constantinople in 1878 at the time of the Russian threat, Osmond Brock who in 1922 saved the lives and evacuated the terrified Greek population of Izmir (Smyrna) in the face of fierce Turkish opposition, John Kelly whose personal leadership qualities restored the morale and discipline of the Atlantic Fleet after the 1931 Invergordon "Mutiny," and Rhoderick McGrigor who laid the foundation of a modernised Royal Navy, replacing guns with missiles and steam with gas turbines, in his period at First Sea Lord, 1951 to 1955, work to be developed by his successor Mountbatten.

The entries are arranged alphabetically and are preceded by an interesting introduction in which Heathcote sets out the origins and development of the rank, the origins lying in the status of the senior officer of the fleet, superior to the Admirals of the Van (The White) and the Rear (The Blue). Promotion to the rank was for long by seniority and dead men's shoes—Nelson would have had to live to the age of 86 before he could have become an Admiral of the Fleet. Heathcote also notes how social connections and luck, along with gunnery specialisation advanced careers after seniority was eventually discarded.

Heathcote, as he notes, is constrained by the title of his work, a companion volume to his earlier The British Field Marshals. As honorary Admirals of the Fleet, foreign and British monarchs and princes had to be included, among them Wilhelm II of Germany and Nicholas II of Russia, while important sea officers who either because of disfavour or an early death, such as Charles Beresford, William Fisher, Max Horton, and Bertram Ramsay, could not appear. Perhaps a second edition could include a note on some of these men. In any case, their absence does not detract from the value of the work, as readable as it is informative.