First and Principal Naval Aides-de-Camp
Since 1972, the office has been united with that of First Sea Lord. [5]
Below is a list of First and Principal Naval Aides-de-Camp, an office established by William IV of the United Kingdom in 1830.
Since 1972, the office has been united with that of First Sea Lord. [5]
Flag aide-de-camp is the designation given to the next most senior naval aide-de-camp after the First and Principal Naval ADC. Between 1972 and 2012, the Commander-in-Chief Naval Home Command invariably held this appointment (from 1994 to 2012 the post of Commander-in-Chief Naval Home Command, and with it the office of Flag aide-de-camp, was united with the job of Second Sea Lord). [6] In October 2012 the post of Commander-in-Chief Naval Home Command was abolished and the current status of the appointment of Flag aide-de-camp is unclear. The 2017 Navy Directory does not list any such person among the aides-de-camp. [7]
An aide-de-camp is a personal assistant or secretary to a person of high rank, usually a senior military, police or government officer, or to a member of a royal family or a head of state.
Admiral of the Fleet Bruce Austin Fraser, 1st Baron Fraser of North Cape, was a senior Royal Navy officer. He served in the First World War, saw action during the Gallipoli Campaign and took part in the internment of the German High Seas Fleet at the end of the war. He also served in the Second World War initially as Third Sea Lord and Controller of the Navy and then as second-in-command and afterwards as commander of the Home Fleet, leading the force that destroyed the German battleship Scharnhorst. He went on to be First Sea Lord and Chief of the Naval Staff in which role he assisted in establishing NATO and agreed to the principle that the Supreme Allied Commander Atlantic should be an American admiral, in the face of fierce British opposition.
Admiral of the Fleet Sir Arthur Knyvet Wilson, 3rd Baronet, was a Royal Navy officer. He served in the Anglo-Egyptian War and then the Mahdist War being awarded the Victoria Cross during the Battle of El Teb in February 1884. He went on to command a battleship, the torpedo school HMS Vernon and then another battleship before taking charge of the Experimental Torpedo Squadron. He later commanded the Channel Fleet. He briefly served as First Sea Lord but in that role he "was abrasive, inarticulate, and autocratic" and was really only selected as Admiral Fisher's successor because he was a supporter of Fisher's reforms. Wilson survived for even less time than was intended by the stop-gap nature of his appointment because of his opposition to the establishment of a Naval Staff. Appointed an advisor at the start of World War I, he advocated offensive schemes in the North Sea including the capture of Heligoland and was an early proponent of the development and use of submarines in the Royal Navy.
Admiral of the Fleet Terence Thornton Lewin, Baron Lewin, was a Royal Navy officer. He served in the Second World War and then commanded a destroyer, the Royal yacht, two frigates and an aircraft carrier before achieving higher command. He was First Sea Lord and Chief of the Naval Staff in the late 1970s and in that role he worked hard to secure a decent wage for servicemen and helped win them a 32% pay rise. He went on to be Chief of the Defence Staff during the Falklands War, serving as chief war planner and as Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher's chief advisor during the war. He was also the first Chief of Defence Staff to act as head of the Armed Forces rather than just Chairman of the Chiefs of Staff Committee.
Admiral of the Fleet Sir John Julian Robertson Oswald was a senior Royal Navy officer. After training as a gunnery specialist, Oswald commanded a frigate and then a destroyer before achieving higher command in the navy. He served as First Sea Lord and Chief of Naval Staff in the early 1990s. In that capacity he advised the British Government on the reduction in the size of the fleet under the Options for Change restructuring programme and on the deployment of Naval Support for the Gulf War in 1991: he also made the decision that members of the Women's Royal Naval Service should be allowed to serve in Royal Navy ships.
Admiral of the Fleet The Honourable Sir Hedworth Meux was a Royal Navy officer. As a junior officer he was present at the bombardment of Alexandria during the Anglo-Egyptian War.
Admiral Sir Alexander Robert Maule Ramsay, was a Royal Navy officer. He was the husband of Princess Patricia of Connaught, the youngest child of Prince Arthur, Duke of Connaught and Strathearn, third son of Queen Victoria. He served with distinction during the First World War. During the 1920s and 1930s, he held several important naval aviation commands.
Admiral Sir Jonathon Band is a retired Royal Navy officer who was the First Sea Lord and Chief of the Naval Staff from 2006 to 2009. Before serving as First Sea Lord he was Commander-in-Chief Fleet. Since becoming First Sea Lord, Band had been a firm advocate of the creation of new ships to meet new threats and maintain the status of the Royal Navy as one of the world's leading naval forces.
Admiral of the Fleet Sir Henry Bradwardine Jackson, was a Royal Navy officer. After serving in the Anglo-Zulu War he established an early reputation as a pioneer of ship-to-ship wireless technology. Later he became the first person to achieve ship-to-ship wireless communications and demonstrated continuous communication with another vessel up to three miles away. He went on to be Third Sea Lord and Controller of the Navy, then Director of the Royal Naval War College and subsequently Chief of the Admiralty War Staff. He was advisor on overseas expeditions planning attacks on Germany's colonial possessions at the start of the First World War and was selected as the surprise successor to Admiral Lord Fisher upon the latter's spectacular resignation in May 1915 following the failure of the Gallipoli Campaign. He had a cordial working relationship with First Lord of the Admiralty Arthur Balfour, but largely concerned himself with administrative matters and his prestige suffered when German destroyers appeared in the Channel, as a result of which he was replaced in December 1916.
Admiral of the Fleet Sir Charles Edward Madden, 1st Baronet,, was a Royal Navy officer who served during the First World War as Chief of the Staff to Sir John Jellicoe in the Grand Fleet from 1914 to 1916 and as Second-in-Command of the fleet under Sir David Beatty from 1916 to 1919. He was Commander-in-Chief of the Atlantic Fleet after the war and served as First Sea Lord in the late 1920s. In that role, in order to avoid an arms race, he accepted parity with the United States in the form of 50 cruisers defending his position on the basis that he only actually had 48 cruisers anyway.
Admiral of the Fleet Sir Michael Patrick Pollock, was a senior officer in the Royal Navy who rose to become First Sea Lord and Chief of the Naval Staff in the early 1970s. In the Second World War, he was an officer on ships tasked with protecting convoys in the Atlantic and the Mediterranean, and was gunnery officer on the cruiser HMS Norfolk when she fought the German battleship Scharnhorst during the Battle of North Cape. He later commanded the aircraft carrier HMS Ark Royal, and hosted Ian Smith on HMS Tiger. In retirement, he held the position of King of Arms of the Order of the Bath and Gloucester King of Arms, with responsibility for heraldry in Wales.
Admiral Sir Francis Charles Bridgeman Bridgeman was a Royal Navy officer. As a captain he commanded a battleship and then an armoured cruiser and then, after serving as second-in-command of three different fleets, he twice undertook tours as Commander-in-Chief of the Home Fleet with a stint as Second Sea Lord in between those tours. He became First Sea Lord in November 1911 but clashed with First Lord of the Admiralty Winston Churchill on technical issues as well as matters relating to a perceived overriding of naval traditions by Churchill: this led to Bridgeman's resignation just a year later.
Admiral of the Fleet Sir Roger Roland Charles Backhouse, was a Royal Navy officer. He served in the First World War as a cruiser commander and after the war became a battle squadron commander and later Commander-in-Chief, Home Fleet. Becoming First Sea Lord in November 1938, his major contribution in that role was to abandon the official British policy of sending a major fleet to Singapore to deter Japanese aggression, realising the immediate threat was closer to home and that such a policy was no longer viable. He died from a brain tumour in July 1939 just before the outbreak of the Second World War.
Admiral of the Fleet Sir Charles Edward Lambe, was a senior Royal Navy officer. He fought in the Second World War in command of a cruiser, as Director of Naval Plans and then in command of an aircraft carrier. He served as First Sea Lord and Chief of the Naval Staff from 1959 until 1960 when he was forced to retire early because of a heart condition. He died only a few months later.
Admiral of the Fleet Sir William Henry May was a Royal Navy Officer. As a junior officer he took part an expedition to rescue Commander Albert Markham who had got into difficulty trying to reach the North Pole via Smith Sound, the sea passage between Greenland and Canada's northernmost island, Ellesmere Island.
Admiral The Honourable Sir Assheton Gore Curzon-Howe, was a British naval officer who served as Commander-in-Chief, Mediterranean Fleet from 1908 to 1910.
Admiral Sir Gerald Louis Charles Dickens was a senior Royal Navy officer and the grandson of Victorian novelist Charles Dickens.
Admiral Sir Desmond Parry Dreyer, was a senior Royal Navy officer who served as Second Sea Lord and Chief of Naval Personnel from 1965 to 1967.
Admiral Sir Montague Edward Browning, was a senior Royal Navy officer who served as Second Sea Lord and Chief of Naval Personnel.
Admiral Sir Philip Andrew Jones, is a retired senior Royal Navy officer. After service in the South Atlantic in 1982 during the Falklands War, he commanded the frigates HMS Beaver and HMS Coventry. He went on to be Flag Officer, Scotland, Northern England and Northern Ireland, Commander United Kingdom Maritime Forces and Assistant Chief of the Naval Staff before being appointed Fleet Commander and Deputy Chief of the Naval Staff. Jones served as First Sea Lord from April 2016 to June 2019.