Geoffrey Thomas Phipps Hornby

Admiral of the Fleet SIR Geoffrey Thomas Phipps Hornby, G.C.B., Royal Navy (20 February, 1825 – 3 March, 1895) was an influential officer in the Victorian Royal Navy.

Early Life & Career

Hornby, second son of Admiral Sir Phipps Hornby (1785–1867) and his wife, Sophia Maria Burgoyne (d. 1860), sister of Field Marshal Sir John Fox Burgoyne, was born at Winwick, Lancashire, on 20 February 1825. James John Hornby was his younger brother. He attended Winwick grammar school and Southwood's School, Plymouth (1832–7). Hornby entered the navy in March 1837 on the Princess Charlotte, flagship of Sir Robert Stopford in the Mediterranean; he served in the Syria campaign of 1840, and remained with his ship until she was paid off in August 1841. After spending six months at Woolwich Dockyard, where his father was superintendent, he was appointed in early 1842 to the Winchester, flagship of Rear-Admiral Josceline Percy, at the Cape of Good Hope. Hornby was promoted lieutenant of the Cleopatra (Captain Christopher Wyvill (1792–1863)) on 15 June 1844, and served on the anti-slavery patrol on the east coast of Africa. He was sent to the Cape in command of a prize in the summer of 1846, and returned to England in the following spring. In August his father accepted the post of commander-in-chief in the Pacific, primarily to advance his son's career. He took him as his flag lieutenant, and on 12 January 1850 Geoffrey was promoted commander of the flagship Asia (84 guns). In the summer of 1851 the Asia returned to England. Hornby went with his cousin Lord Stanley for a tour in India but his health broke down, and he was obliged to return home. In 1852 his father was a lord of the Admiralty in Lord Derby's administration; on the government's downfall he secured Hornby's promotion to captain on 18 December 1852. In 1853 Hornby married Emily Frances, daughter of the Revd John Coles of Ditcham Park, Hampshire, and sister of Captain Cowper-Coles; they had three sons and two daughters. One of their sons, Robert Stewart Phipps Hornby CMG, became captain in the navy; and in 1900 an elder son, Edmund John Phipps Hornby, won the Victoria Cross while serving in South Africa as a major in the artillery.

Having become the youngest full captain in the navy, Hornby, a Conservative related to Lord Derby, spent many years on half pay; the last year of this period was spent at the Royal Naval College, Portsmouth. Then, in August 1858, during Lord Derby's second ministry, he was appointed to the Tribune. He joined her at Hong Kong in October, and was sent with a detachment of marines to Vancouver Island, because of the dispute with the United States over San Juan, an island between Vancouver and the mainland. The island was awarded to the United States in 1872; but in 1859 the difficulty was tided over mainly owing to Hornby's tact. The Tribune was ordered home to repair serious defects, and arrived at the end of July 1860. In March 1861 Hornby went out to the Mediterranean to command the Neptune, an old three-decker converted into a screw two-decker, and manned by ‘bounty’ men, whom he characterized as ‘shameful riffraff’. Here he came under the command of Sir William Fanshawe Martin, and witnessed Martin's attempts to develop steam manoeuvres. At the time Hornby thought them needlessly complicated and probably dangerous; but in later life he seems to have better recognized the difficulties with which Martin had to contend, and to have acknowledged their merit. This practice led to his own profound studies of the subject and to his future excellence in the management of fleets.

In November 1862 the Neptune returned to England, and in the following March Hornby was appointed to the Edgar as flag captain of Rear-Admiral Sidney Colpoys Dacres, commanding the channel squadron. In September 1865 Hornby was appointed to the Bristol as a first-class commodore for the west coast of Africa, where he continued until the end of 1867; his health, and his private affairs after his father's death, forced him to return to England early in 1868. On 1 January 1869 he was promoted rear-admiral, and appointed to command the flying squadron, which he did for two years. From 1871 to 1874 he commanded the channel squadron, being entrusted with the first heavy weather trials of the epochal battleship Devastation. From 1875 to 1877 he was one of the lords of the Admiralty, a position which, to a man of active habits, proved very irksome, the more so because he disagreed with the Admiralty's methods of conducting naval business. His time, he complained, was so taken up with many little details that he was unable to give proper consideration to important affairs. For this he blamed the reforms introduced by Hugh Childers in 1869, and in consequence he and admirals Key and Beauchamp Seymour agreed to refuse the post of senior naval lord without the promise of a major enquiry and additional naval assistance. Key broke this agreement in 1879. On 13 January 1877 Hornby wrote that he had left the Admiralty with less regret and more pleasure than he had left any other work with which he had previously been so long connected. It was thus that, when offered the choice of being first sea lord or commander-in-chief in the Mediterranean, he unhesitatingly chose the latter, and he was accordingly appointed early in January 1877, having been promoted vice-admiral on 1 January 1875.

With his flag in the Alexandra Hornby arrived at Malta on 18 March, and took up the command, which he held during the Russo-Turkish War (1877–8); and in February 1878, the Russian army having advanced to within what seemed striking distance of Constantinople, Hornby was ordered by Disraeli's cabinet to take the fleet through the Dardanelles. The Turkish governor and government protested, but they made no attempt to oppose the passage, though Hornby went through prepared to use force if necessary. His services and tact were rewarded by the KCB in August 1878. In June 1879 he was promoted admiral, and in February 1880 he returned to England. In 1881 he was appointed president of the Royal Naval College, Portsmouth; thereafter he was regularly consulted by the Admiralty on all issues of policy. In November 1882 he became commander-in-chief at Portsmouth, a position he held for the customary three years. In the summer of 1885 he left Portsmouth for a few weeks to command the Baltic fleet assembled during the Panjdeh crisis. After the crisis abated Hornby and his flag captain, John Fisher, carried out a series of experiments on the attack and defence of harbours using mines and torpedoes. On 19 December 1885 he was appointed GCB, with especial reference to his summer ‘work in command of the evolutionary squadron’; and on 18 January 1886 he was appointed first and principal naval aide-de-camp to the queen.

Hornby now proposed to settle down on his estate at Lordington, near Emsworth, Hampshire. Although he continued to farm his own land, and to take much interest in county affairs, the welfare of the service always had prior claims. From 1884 Hornby took the lead in providing naval support for the ‘big navy’ agitation. He directed his followers, notably Captain John Fisher, to provide W. T. Stead with the material for his 1884 Pall Mall Gazette articles, and he continued to speak publicly on the subject after the Conservatives returned to power. Since his time at the Admiralty in the mid-1870s Hornby had believed the navy was too small. For him this was not a party political issue, and he refused to be silenced by the Conservatives. Here the defection of his cousin the fifteenth earl of Derby to the Liberals helped him. Supported by the London chamber of commerce Hornby continued to urge increased provision for the defence of trade. His efforts were in part responsible for the Naval Defence Act of 1889 and the Spencer programme of 1894. He even accepted the presidency of the Navy League. On 1 May 1888 he was promoted admiral of the fleet, and in 1889, and again in 1890, he was appointed aide-de-camp to Kaiser Wilhelm II during his visits to Britain. In 1891 he was officially sent, at the Kaiser's invitation, to the German manoeuvres in Schleswig-Holstein. Although he recovered from a serious illness in 1888, and from a severe accident in the early spring of 1891, he was then considerably aged. The death of his wife in January 1892 was a further shock. In February 1895, on his seventieth birthday, he was retired. On 3 March he died of influenza at Little Green, Lordington, Sussex. After his cremation at Woking his ashes were buried at Compton, Sussex, on 9 March.

While president of the Royal Naval College, Portsmouth, Hornby delivered there, in the spring of 1882, a short course of lectures on ‘exercising squadrons’, the notes of which were printed for the use of officers. During his later years he wrote occasionally in The Times and the monthly reviews on professional subjects. For many years he was recognized in the navy as the highest authority on tactics and strategy, though, except as a boy at Acre in 1840, he had never seen a shot fired in war. Almost all his service had been in flagships, and thus he had exceptional familiarity with fleets, and received the traditions and reflections of past generations.

Hornby dominated the navy between 1875 and 1885, and even in his last years remained a major influence on it, through his followers and his successful exploitation of the ‘big navy’ propaganda. His career had been made by two men: his father, who twice took posts that his age and health would otherwise have led him to refuse, in order to secure his son's early promotion; and his relative Lord Derby. As a result in 1852 Hornby, at the age of twenty-seven, had become the youngest captain in the navy. This provided him with experience of command, and the relative youth for a long and active flag career. Although considered the finest fleet commander of the era, Hornby was equally influential in issues of ship design and strategy. Throughout his career he stressed the importance of efficiency, order, and discipline, and he helped to raise standards in all areas. He led the movement that would transform the Victorian navy into the modern service that went to war in 1914.

Wealth at death; £27,339 16s. 1d.: Resworn probate; July, 1896.

Bibliography

• "Death of Sir Geoffrey Hornby" (News). The Times. Monday, 4 March, 1895. Issue 34515, col C, pg. 10.
• Template:BibFGDNI

Service Records

• The National Archives. ADM 196/36.
• The National Archives. ADM 196/1.

Naval Offices
Preceded by Sir Astley Cooper Key	First and Principal Naval Aide-de-Camp 1886 – 1895	Succeeded by Sir Algernon McL. Lyons

Phipps Hornby