21.Rodger: Naval
Records p.29
22.Ruddock F.
Mackay: Fisher of Kilverstone (London: OUP,
1973) pp.273-279
23.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
24.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.)
25.D.M. Shurman: The Education of a Navy - the Development of
British Naval Strategic Thought, 1867-1914 (London: Cassel, 1965) p.24
26.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.
27.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.)
28.Duffy,
Fisher, Greenhill, Starkey & Youings: New
Maritime History of Devon pp.193-195
29.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.
30.Mackay: Fisher
p.287
31.Duffy,
Fisher, Greenhill, Starkey & Youings: New
Maritime History of Devon p.198
32.Promoted to
Rear Admiral 1st November 1919
33.Arthur J. Marder: From the Dreadnought to Scapa Flow (London:
OUP, 1970) pp.316-319
34.Hunt: Sailor-Scholar
pp.32-33
35.Lavery: Nelson’s
Navy pp.295-324
36.Shurman: Education
of a Navy pp.1-5, p.13 and pp.18-29
37.Hunt: Sailor-Scholar
p.33
38.Much of this
is well known, but for detail ibid. pp.9-24
39.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...’
40.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
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