Cecil Irby Prowse

Captain Cecil Irby Prowse, Royal Navy (26 September, 1866 – 31 May, 1916) was an officer in the Royal Navy.

Life & Career

Prowse was promoted to the rank of Lieutenant on 1 January, 1890.

Prowse was promoted to the rank of Commander on 30 June, 1901. On 6 July he was appointed to the cruiser Amphitrite for the annual manœuvres. He was appointed Commander (Second-in-Command) of the battleship Jupiter on 5 October, remaining in her until being superseded on 14 February, 1904.

On 3 January, 1905, Prowse was appointed Commander of the battleship Resolution, in which he served until 23 January, 1906. From 7 March to 13 May of that year he took the War Course at Portsmouth, being adjudged First Class. From 16 May to 1 August he was appointed to President for study at the Army Staff College at Camberley. On the latter date he was appointed in command of the training ship Nelson.

Captain

Prowse was promoted to the rank of Captain on 30 June, 1907. On 1 October he was relieved in command of Nelson and on 1 October was appointed to President for another War Course. He was placed eleventh out of twenty-three Class I officers, being adjudged "V.G. rec^d for Staff College." On 1 January 1908, he was appointed in command of Powerful, first-class protected cruiser, as Flag Captain to Vice-Admiral Sir Richard Poore, Bart., the new Commander-in-Chief on the Australian Station.

Relieved of command of Powerful on 31 December, 1910, on 11 September, 1911, Prowse was appointed for a third War Course, being placed eleventh out of seventeen Captains, given a First Class pass, and adjudged "Attentive & capable."

After commanding Hannibal on manœuvres from 2 July, 1912, Prowse was appointed in command of the armoured cruiser Suffolk on 6 August, and then of the armoured cruiser Duke of Edinburgh on 2 May, 1913.

Great War

Prowse was appointed Captain of the battlecruiser Queen Mary on 13 October, 1914. The Commander of the ship, William M. James, later left an unflattering portrait of Prowse:

Prowse was a very different type to Hall or Bentinck [former Captains of Queen Mary]. He was one of the old-fashioned, rigid type. In the seventeen months I served him as Commander, he never once unbent. He found himself in a strange atmosphere. Our numerous reforms did not arouse his interest, let alone his enthusiasm. I believe he disliked them all and that the general air of well-being and high state of discipline in some subtle way irritated him because he felt that our success should not have been possible using methods with which he had no sympathy. But we had been so long in commission that even had he been so minded he could not put the clock back, and his assumption of command made little difference to the ship's company.

Prowse's younger brother, Brigadier-General Charles Bertie Prowse, C.B., D.S.O., was killed a month later on 1 July during the first day of the Battle of the Somme. He had decided to move his 11th Brigade headquarters into the captured German front line, and while assembling men of the Seaforth Highlanders in the British trenches he was shot in the back by machine gun fire.

Bibliography

• Davies, Frank; Maddocks, Graham (1995). Bloody Red Tabs: General Officer Casualties of the Great War, 1914-1918. London: Leo Cooper. ISBN 0-50520463-6.
• James, Admiral Sir William (1951). The Sky was Always Blue. London: Methuen & Co..

Service Records

• The National Archives. ADM 196/88.
• The National Archives. ADM 196/42.

Naval Appointments
Preceded by Cyril L. Wasey	Captain of H.M. T.B. 58 11 Jul, 1893 – 17 Aug, 1893	Succeeded by Gerald Ducat
Preceded by Adrian G. Allgood	Captain of H.M.S. Nelson 1 Aug, 1906 – 16 Jul, 1907	Succeeded by William D. Church
Preceded by Lionel Halsey	Captain of H.M.S. Powerful 1 Jan, 1908 – 31 Dec, 1910	Succeeded by Edward F. Bruen
Preceded by Charles F. Corbett	Captain of H.M.S. Hannibal 2 Jul, 1912 – Aug, 1912	Succeeded by Bernhard A. Pratt-Barlow
Preceded by Edward H. Moubray	Captain of H.M.S. Suffolk 6 Aug, 1912 – 28 Oct, 1912	Succeeded by Philip Francklin
Preceded by Thomas W. Kemp	Captain of H.M.S. Duke of Edinburgh 2 May, 1913 – Aug, 1914	Succeeded by Henry Blackett
Preceded by Rudolf W. Bentinck	Captain of H.M.S. Queen Mary 13 Oct, 1914 – 31 May, 1916	Succeeded by Vessel Lost