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This page is a list of famous ships and sailors of the Royal Navy . The list is composed of famous sailors of the Royal Navy e.g. Horatio Nelson. The list also includes people who are famous and have served with the Royal Navy at some point e.g. Alec Guinness. This list also includes ships that have become famous in their own right, e.g. Mary Rose .
In approximate chronological order.
Admiral of the Fleet John Rushworth Jellicoe, 1st Earl Jellicoe, was a Royal Navy officer. He fought in the Anglo-Egyptian War and the Boxer Rebellion and commanded the Grand Fleet at the Battle of Jutland in May 1916 during the First World War. His handling of the fleet at that battle was controversial. Jellicoe made no serious mistakes and the German High Seas Fleet retreated to port, at a time when defeat would have been catastrophic for Britain, but the public was disappointed that the Royal Navy had not won a more dramatic victory given that they outnumbered the enemy. Jellicoe later served as First Sea Lord, overseeing the expansion of the Naval Staff at the Admiralty and the introduction of convoys, but was relieved at the end of 1917. He also served as the governor-general of New Zealand in the early 1920s.
Samuel Hood, 1st Viscount Hood was an admiral in the Royal Navy. As a junior officer he saw action during the War of the Austrian Succession. While in temporary command of Antelope, he drove a French ship ashore in Audierne Bay, and captured two privateers in 1757 during the Seven Years' War. He held senior command as Commander-in-Chief, North American Station and then as Commander-in-Chief, Leeward Islands Station, leading the British fleet to victory at Battle of the Mona Passage in April 1782 during the American Revolutionary War. He went on to be Commander-in-Chief, Portsmouth, then First Naval Lord and, after briefly returning to the Portsmouth command, became Commander-in-Chief, Mediterranean Fleet during the French Revolutionary Wars. His younger brother was Admiral Alexander Hood, 1st Viscount Bridport (1726–1814), and his first cousin once-removed was Admiral Sir Samuel Hood, 1st Baronet (1762–1814).
The Royal Naval Reserve (RNR) is one of the two volunteer reserve forces of the Royal Navy in the United Kingdom. Together with the Royal Marines Reserve, they form the Maritime Reserve. The present RNR was formed by merging the original Royal Naval Reserve, created in 1859, and the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve (RNVR), created in 1903. The Royal Naval Reserve has seen action in World War I, World War II, the Iraq War, and War in Afghanistan.
Rear Admiral Sir Horace Lambert Alexander Hood, was a Royal Navy admiral of the First World War, whose lengthy and distinguished service saw him engaged in operations around the world, frequently participating in land campaigns as part of a shore brigade. His early death at the Battle of Jutland in the destruction of his flagship HMS Invincible was met with mourning and accolades from across Britain.
Admiral Sir William Wordsworth Fisher was a Royal Navy officer who captained a battleship at the Battle of Jutland and became Commander-in-Chief of the Mediterranean Fleet. Arthur Marder wrote that he was "the outstanding admiral of the inter-war period".
Admiral of the Fleet Alfred Ernle Montacute Chatfield, 1st Baron Chatfield, was a Royal Navy officer. During the First World War he was present as Sir David Beatty's Flag-Captain at the Battle of Heligoland Bight in August 1914, at the Battle of Dogger Bank in January 1915 and at the Battle of Jutland in May 1916. After the war he became Commander-in-Chief, Atlantic Fleet and then Commander-in-Chief, Mediterranean Fleet before serving as First Sea Lord in the mid-1930s in which role he won arguments that the Royal Navy should have 70 cruisers rather than the 50 cruisers that had been agreed at the Naval Conference of 1930, that the battleship still had an important role to play despite the development of the bomber and that the Fleet Air Arm should be part of the Royal Navy rather than the Royal Air Force. He subsequently served as Minister for Coordination of Defence in the early years of the Second World War.
Admiral of the Fleet Sir James Fownes Somerville, was a Royal Navy officer. He served in the First World War as fleet wireless officer for the Mediterranean Fleet where he was involved in providing naval support for the Gallipoli Campaign. He also served in the Second World War as commander of the newly formed Force H: after the French armistice with Germany, Winston Churchill gave Somerville and Force H the task of neutralizing the main element of the French battle fleet, then at Mers El Kébir in Algeria. After he had destroyed the French Battle fleet, Somerville played an important role in the pursuit and sinking of the German battleship Bismarck.
Admiral Alexander Hood, 1st Viscount Bridport, KB, of Cricket St Thomas, Somerset, was an officer of the British Royal Navy during the French Revolutionary Wars and Napoleonic Wars.
Captain Alexander Hood was an officer of the Royal Navy, one of several members of the Hood family to serve at sea, including his brother Sir Samuel Hood, who were both sponsored into the Royal Navy by their cousins once removed, Viscount Hood and Alexander Hood.
Admiral Arthur William Acland Hood, 1st Baron Hood of Avalon, was an officer of the Royal Navy. As a junior officer he took part in the capture of Acre during the Oriental Crisis in 1840 and went ashore with the naval brigade at the defence of Eupatoria in November 1854 during the Crimean War. He became First Naval Lord in June 1885 and in that role was primarily concerned with enshrining into law the recommendations contained in a report on the disposition of the ships of the Royal Navy many of which were unarmoured and together incapable of meeting the combined threat from any two of the other naval powers : these recommendations were contained in the Naval Defence Act 1889.
Admiral Sir Frederic Charles Dreyer, was an officer of the Royal Navy. A gunnery expert, he developed a fire control system for British warships, and served as flag captain to Admiral Sir John Jellicoe at the Battle of Jutland. He retired with the rank of admiral in 1943, having served through two world wars and having already retired once.
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 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.
Captain Stephen Wentworth Roskill, was a senior career officer of the Royal Navy, serving during the Second World War and, after his enforced medical retirement, served as the official historian of the Royal Navy from 1949 to 1960. He is now chiefly remembered as a prodigious author of books on British maritime history.
Admiral Sir William Milbourne James, was a British naval commander, politician and author. He served in the Royal Navy from the early 20th century to the Second World War. During the First World War, he was an integral part of the Naval Intelligence Division in its early years.
Admiral Sir William Frederic Wake-Walker KCB CBE was a British admiral who served in the Royal Navy during World War I and World War II, taking a leading part in the destruction of the German battleship Bismarck, and in Operation Dynamo, the evacuation at Dunkirk.
Admiral Sir Eric John Arthur Fullerton was a Royal Navy officer.
Admiral Sir Geoffrey John Audley Miles, KCB, KCSI was a senior Royal Navy admiral who served as Deputy Naval Commander, South East Asia Command under Lord Mountbatten during the Second World War, as the Senior British Representative on the Tripartite Naval Commission and as the last Commander-in-Chief, Indian Navy of the unified Royal Indian Navy.
Patrick James Boyle, 8th Earl of Glasgow,, was a Scottish nobleman and a far right political activist, involved with fascist parties and groups.
Admiral Sir Sidney Robert Bailey, was a Royal Navy officer who served as President of the Royal Naval College, Greenwich from 1937 to 1938.
