Herbert Richmond

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
For the mathematician, see Herbert William Richmond.

Sir Herbert Richmond
Master of Downing College, Cambridge
In office
1934–1946
Preceded byAlbert Seward
Succeeded byLionel Whitby
Personal details
Born(1871-09-15)15 September 1871
Beavor Lodge,
Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath

Cambridge University from 1934 to 1936, and Master of Downing College, Cambridge
from 1934 to 1946.

Personal life

Richmond was the second son of artist Sir William Blake Richmond, son of the portrait painter George Richmond.[3] In July 1907 he married Florence Elsa, elder daughter of the writer

Sir Thomas Hugh Bell. She was half-sister of the diplomat Gertrude Bell
.

Naval career

Richmond joined the Royal Navy as a cadet in 1885, serving on the Australian Station and in the Hydrographic Service before qualifying as a torpedo officer in 1897. He began to develop a serious interest in naval history while serving in HMS Empress of India in 1897–98, HMS Ramillies in 1899, and HMS Canopus in 1899–1900, turning himself into a first-rate historian without formal university training.

In 1900–1902 Richmond served in the flagship of the Channel Fleet

Cape of Good Hope Station. He was assigned to the Admiralty in 1906–08, where he served briefly as naval assistant to Admiral John Fisher, 1st Baron Fisher. In 1907, inspired by the work of civilian naval historian Julian Corbett, Richmond began archive research concerning the naval aspects of the War of the Austrian Succession
, which he completed in 1914, but which was not published until 1920 due to the First World War.

Promoted to captain, Richmond commanded HMS Dreadnought from 1909 to 1911, then, in 1911–12, the Torpedo School, training ships HMS Furious and HMS Vindictive.[6] In 1912 he founded the Naval Review in order to promote innovative thought within the Royal Navy.

In 1913 Richmond became assistant director of operations on the Admiralty's Naval Staff, where his frequent memoranda about deficiencies in naval strategy drew the disdain of First Lord of the Admiralty

the Nore) in 1916. Fortunately, after the disappointing 31 May – 1 June 1916 Battle of Jutland resulted in the appointment of his admirer Admiral David Beatty as Grand Fleet CIC in December[6] 1916, assisted by his memorandums that predicted the beginning of unrestricted submarine warfare by Germany beginning 1 February 1917, he received command of HMS Conqueror in the Grand Fleet in April 1917, after which he served as director of staff duties and training in 1918, then commanded HMS Erin in 1919.[6]

In early 1917 Richmond lobbied hard for convoy protection of merchant shipping in the

Lloyd George, in which he recommended that Richmond be appointed to his cabinet, to which Lloyd George replied "I have put his name to the Admiralty and they tell me he is only a paper man". On 20 May he met with him again, pressing him to no avail, with Lloyd George saying "If you could put a captain in a sufficiently strong position, Richmond is the man"; nothing came of it.[7]

Flag officer

Promoted to rear admiral, Richmond was put in charge of the Senior Officers' Course at the

International Conference on the Safety of Life at Sea
.

Academic career

Following his forced retirement from the Royal Navy in 1931,

Oxford University
in 1943 (for the academic year 1943/4). He never published a formal treatise on naval strategy.

In March 1942 Richmond published an article in The Fortnightly Review which charged that the British defeat in the

Battle of Singapore in February 1942 was due to "the folly of not providing adequately for the command of the sea in a two-ocean war".[8]
In his last book Statesmen and Sea Power (1946), he charged that the defeat was sealed by "the illusion that a Two-Hemisphere Empire can be defended by a One-Hemisphere Navy".[9]

Impact

On 28–29 September 1992 the Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island gathered naval experts from around the world to examine the works of Richmond and Sir Julian Corbett in the post-Cold War context, resulting in the book Mahan is not Enough (1993),[10] which includes the article "Process: The Realities of Formulating Modern Naval Strategy" by David Alan Rosenberg, showing the importance of leveraging and integrating the expertise of naval historians with naval officers for a full understanding of naval strategy.[11]

Works

  • Papers Relating to the Loss of Menorca in 1756 (Navy Records Society, 1913) read online
  • Private Papers of
    First Lord of the Admiralty
    , 1794–1801     (2 vols.) (Navy Records Society, 1914)
  • The Navy in the War of 1739–48 (Cambridge University Press, 1920) read online
  • Command and Discipline (1927)
  • National Policy and Naval Strength and Other Essays by H.W. Richmond; with a foreword by
    Lord Sydenham of Combe, (New York: Longman, Green and Company, 1928, 1934, 1993) read online
  • The Navy in India, 1763–1783 (1931)
  • Economy and Naval Security : A Plea for the Examination of the Problem of the Reduction in the Cost of Naval Armaments on the Lines of Strategy and Policy (Ernest Benn Ltd., 1931) read online
  • Imperial Defence and Capture at Sea in War (1932)
  • Naval History and the Citizen: An Inaugural Lecture Delivered before the University on 25 April 1934 (Cambridge University Press, 1934) read online
  • Sea Power in the Modern World (1934)
  • The Navy (William Hodge, 1937) read online
  • Statesmen and Sea Power The Ford Lectures (1946)
  • The Navy as an Instrument of Policy, 1558–1727 Edited by E.A. Hughes. (1953)
  • 'How are we going to make war?' Admiral Sir Herbert Richmond and British Far Eastern War Plans by Christopher M. Bell read online
  • Admiral Sir Herbert Richmond by
    George Macaulay Trevelyan (Cumberledge, 1946) read online
  • The Historical Lessons and Intellectual Rigour of Admiral Sir Herbert William Richmond by Commander Bruce McLennan read online

References

  1. ^ "navyrecords.org.uk". Archived from the original on 9 October 2015. Retrieved 1 August 2015.
  2. ^ a b www.jstor.org
  3. ^ www.saxonlodge.net
  4. ^ "No. 27512". The London Gazette. 2 January 1903. p. 4.
  5. ^ "Naval & Military intelligence". The Times. No. 36973. London. 9 January 1903. p. 5.
  6. ^ a b c d e f g h i Liddell Hart Centre for Military Archives
  7. ^
    ISBN 978-0-7567-2880-9
    .
  8. doi:10.1080/01402399708437690
    .
  9. ^ www.academia.edu
  10. ^ archive.org
  11. ^ "blog.usni.org". Archived from the original on 18 May 2015. Retrieved 1 August 2015.

Secondary sources

External links

Military offices
Preceded by
Sir Frederick Tudor
 President, Royal Naval College, Greenwich
1922–1923 		Succeeded by
Preceded by Commander-in-Chief, East Indies Station
1923–1925 		Succeeded by
New title
College founded
 Commandant of the Imperial Defence College
1926–1929 		Succeeded by
Academic offices
Preceded by Master of Downing College, Cambridge
1936–1947 		Succeeded by
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