- Rodger: Naval Records p.29
- Ruddock F. Mackay: Fisher of Kilverstone (London: OUP, 1973) pp.273-279
- Ibid. pp.281-282. Also Barry D. Hunt: Sailor-Scholar - Admiral Sir Herbert Richmond 1871-1946 (Waterloo, Ontario: Wilfred Laurier University Press, 1982) pp.10-11
- An excellent account, giving the strengths and weaknesses of this system can be found in the memoirs of R/Adm. O.W. Phillips R.N.: IWM: PP/MCR/153. There is a particularly interesting aspect in this. Having got seconds in seamanship, navigation and torpedo, but a third in engineering he opted for and became an engineer. Not only a reflection on the shortage of engineers (and the social stigma), his instructors realised his worth, even though he did not perform well in these particular examinations.
See also those of Cdr. F.J. Chambers R.N.: IWM: (unreferenced); Capt. C.H. Ringrose-Wharton R.N.: IWM: 75/15/1-4 (N.B. The IWM holds at least twenty other officers’ accounts of training around the period and warrants detailed research.)
- D.M. Shurman: The Education of a Navy - the Development of British Naval Strategic Thought, 1867-1914 (London: Cassel, 1965) p.24
- The bias towards middle and upper class young officers from SE England was drawn from in-depth analysis by Dr. Mary Jones, of Exeter University. This was given in a paper for the International Commission for Maritime History, at King’s College London, on 18th January 2001.
- Arthur J. Marder: From the Dreadnought to Scapa Flow (London: OUP, 1952) volume I pp.46-50; and Mackay: Fisher pp.275-278
After the First World War engineers were removed from the executive branch, becoming their own men again and regaining distinctive features in badges of rank: a purple back to their rings. (See example of a Captain (E) epaulette on index page of this web-site.)
- Duffy, Fisher, Greenhill, Starkey & Youings: New Maritime History of Devon pp.193-195
- Summers: GANGES pp.51-60
N.B. I checked as many of the standard works as possible, but I am not entirely sure whether this rating training was actually part of the Selborne Scheme, but because of the Committee set up in 1902, I suspect not.
- Mackay: Fisher p.287
- Duffy, Fisher, Greenhill, Starkey & Youings: New Maritime History of Devon p.198
- Promoted to Rear Admiral 1st November 1919
- Arthur J. Marder: From the Dreadnought to Scapa Flow (London: OUP, 1970) pp.316-319
- Hunt: Sailor-Scholar pp.32-33
- Lavery: Nelson’s Navy pp.295-324
- Shurman: Education of a Navy pp.1-5, p.13 and pp.18-29
- Hunt: Sailor-Scholar p.33
- Much of this is well known, but for detail ibid. pp.9-24
- IWM: PP/MCR/153 pp.18-19. Owen Phillips stated the following in his memoirs:-
‘It is sobering to realise that, until a staff system was, literally, forced upon the Admiralty just before WW1, planning and the study of strategy was considered to be the province of only senior officers. The forward-looking ‘youngsters’ who had been teaching themselves, and urging that such study should begin at a much earlier age if a real-grip of these subjects was to be obtained, were as often as not discouraged and frowned upon. Many mistakes, errors, and the lack of a trained body of informed opinion could have been avoided. We were taught European as well as British and naval history, which was good. Some of us read the works of Captain Mahan USN and Corbett, but no junior officer then had the benefit of the thinking of men like Richmond, Drax, the Dewars, Jellicoe, Prince Louis of Battenberg or Custance, all of our own service. There were of course, others...’
- For the analysis of Richmond and others of the ‘Young Turks’ (such as Drax), see Marder: Dreadnought to Scapa Flow volume V pp.316-332