Cyril Thomas Moulden Fuller

Admiral SIR Cyril Thomas Moulden Fuller, K.C.B., Royal Navy (22 May, 1874 – 1 February, 1942) was an officer of the Royal Navy.

Life & Career

Fuller was the son of Thomas Fuller, late captain in the 18th Hussars, by his wife, Mary Ada, daughter of Frederick William Fryer, of Clarence House, West Cowes, where the child was born 22 May 1874.

Entering the Royal Navy in 1887 Fuller served in the Mediterranean as a cadet and later as midshipman in the battleship Collingwood from November 1889 and as a midshipman in the battleship Trafalgar from May 1890. He was promoted sub-lieutenant in October 1893 and, after passing first class in all his examinations and winning the Goodenough medal for gunnery, was promoted lieutenant in April 1894, a few weeks before his twentieth birthday. After serving on the China station as a watchkeeper in the cruiser Rainbow he returned to the United Kingdom to specialize in gunnery and was appointed gunnery officer of the battleship Canopus in the Mediterranean Fleet in December 1899. He joined the senior staff of the gunnery school at Portsmouth in January 1902 and was promoted commander in December 1903 at the early age of twenty-nine. For a short time he served as executive officer of the battleship Majestic but in February 1905 he joined the battleship King Edward VII as flag commander to Sir William May [q.v.] , the commander-in-chief, Atlantic Fleet. Then, from 1908 to 1910 he commanded the dispatch vessel Alacrity in China. After his early promotion to captain in December 1910 he served for nearly three years on the staff of the inspector of target practice.

In May 1914 he returned to sea in command of the cadet training cruiser Cumberland. After the outbreak of war in August 1914 the Cumberland was employed in the operations against German territory in the Cameroons, where Fuller was senior naval officer. In November he transferred to the light cruiser Challenger and in March 1915 to the light cruiser Astraea. He had been appointed C.M.G. in January and in 1916 was appointed to the D.S.O. in recognition of the ability and success with which he had organized the Cameroon naval operations.

On returning home he was appointed, in August 1916, to the command of the new battle cruiser Repulse in the Grand Fleet, but in October 1917, after serving for a month in the intelligence division, became with (Sir) Dudley Pound [q.v.] an assistant director of the newly formed plans division of the naval staff of the Admiralty. He succeeded Roger (later Lord) Keyes [q.v.] as director in January 1918 and in this capacity headed the naval section of the peace conference in Paris in 1919. In October 1919 he was gazetted C.B.

His next appointment was that of chief of staff to Sir Charles Madden [q.v.] , the commander-in-chief, Atlantic Fleet, in the battleship Queen Elizabeth. In June 1921 he was promoted rear-admiral and on 1 December 1922 became a lord commissioner of the Admiralty and assistant chief of the naval staff, but in May 1923 was appointed third sea lord and controller of the navy. Then, in April 1925, he returned to sea in command of the battle cruiser squadron with his flag in the Hood. He was promoted to the rank of Vice-Admiral on 8 July, 1926 and was appointed K.C.B. in 1928.

In the spring of 1928 he became commander-in-chief, North America and West Indies, and on his promotion to admiral two years later, in May 1930, was appointed second sea lord and chief of naval personnel. His term of office proved to be one of exceptional difficulty. It was a period of severe retrenchment following the conclusion of the London naval conference in April 1930. He was still in office when the financial crisis of 1931 led to the naval mutiny at Invergordon. Although his connexion with the incident was perhaps only nominal, as a member of the Board of Admiralty his career, like those of his brother members, suffered. When he left the Admiralty in August 1932 he was not again employed and was placed on the retired list in 1935. During his long naval career he had received several foreign decorations; he was a commander of the Legion of Honour and of the Order of the Crown of Italy and a member of the Order of the Rising Sun of Japan; he held the French croix de guerre, the United States D.S.M., and the Board of Trade medal for life saving.

In 1902 Fuller married Edith Margaret (died 1947), daughter of Charles Connell, shipbuilder, of Rozelle, Glasgow. They had two sons and two daughters. He died at Whilton Lodge, Long Buckby, Northamptonshire, 1 February 1942. There is a black chalk and water-colour portrait by Sir Muirhead Bone in the Imperial War Museum.

Bibliography

• "Admiral Sir Cyril Fuller" (Obituaries). The Times. Tuesday, 3 February, 1942. Issue 49150, col E, pg. 7.

Service Record

• The National Archives. ADM 196/43.

{{refend}]