John Knox Laughton

“ In January 1799 he was appointed to the 28-gun frigate Nemesis, in which, on 25 July 1800, when in command of a small squadron off Ostend, he met a number of Danish merchant vessels under convoy of the frigate Freya. It was a favourite contention of neutrals that the convoy of a ship of war was a guarantee that none of the vessels carried contraband, and that they were therefore exempt from search. ”

“ In 1881 he was appointed president of the Royal Naval College, from which he was removed in November 1882, to be commander-in-chief at Portsmouth, which office he held for the customary three years. In the summer of 1885, leaving Portsmouth for a few weeks, he commanded an evolutionary squadron, the direct precursor of the 'manœœuvres' which have been pretty regularly carried out ever since. One interesting feature of the exercises was the defence of the fleet at anchor in Berehaven against an attack by torpedo-boats. ”

“ Always a man of strong literary instincts, in his retirement he devoted himself more and more to the study of history as a key to the many problems of naval policy and strategy which are continually arising. ”

“ The same night Dacres, by an impromptu and unexpected question put by the signal apparatus, which was at once understood and answered, convinced himself of the value of the invention, and partially adopted it from that day. Before the end of the year Dacres and all the captains of the Channel fleet sent in reports calling for the immediate adoption of the system. ”

“ In August his father was appointed commander-in-chief in the Pacific; Hornby went with him as flag-lieutenant, and on 12 Jan. 1850 was promoted to be commander of the flagship Asia of 84 guns. In the summer of 1851 the Asia returned to England, and the admiral settled down at Littlegreen, near Emsworth, a place which he had inherited some fourteen years before, though family arrangements had hitherto prevented his occupying it. Hornby meantime went with his kinsman, Lord Stanley, for a tour in India ”

“ It was commonly said that, with the exception of Hornby, no one in modern times could be compared with him. On 18 Oct. 1887 he was made an admiral, and from 1890 to 1893 he was commander-in-chief at Devonport. On 3 June 1893 he was promoted to the rank of admiral of the fleet.
A little more than two months afterwards, 22 Aug. 1893, on the death of his father's brother, he succeeded him as reigning duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, in virtue of the renunciation in 1863 by his brother, the Prince of Wales, of the title to that duchy. ”

“ ARMSTRONG, Sir ALEXANDER (1818–1899) , naval medical officer, descended from a family originally of Cumberland, and from Major-general John Armstrong (1673–1742 [q.v.] ) , was the son of Alexander Armstrong of Croghan Lodge, Fermanagh. He studied medicine at Trinity College, Dublin, and at the university of Edinburgh, where he graduated with honours in 1841, and entered the navy as an assistant surgeon in March 1842. ”

“ He was shortly after appointed to the Frolic brig on the coast of South America, and in September 1843 was cruising to the southward of Rio Janeiro in command of the Frolic's pinnace, when, on the 6th, off Santos, he fell in with the piratical slaver Vincedora, a large brigantine with a crew of thirty men. Finding the pinnace in a position to intercept her retreat, the brigantine attempted to run it down. At the last moment the slavers' hearts failed them, and the helm was put hard over. ”

“ At the naval review at Spithead in 1897, the Teutonic, one of the largest steamers then afloat, was sent by Ismay to take part in the national display. In 1892 Ismay retired from the firm of Ismay, Imrie, & Co., but retained the chairmanship of the White Star Company, whose fleet then consisted of eighteen steamers, of an aggregate of 99,000 tons, which by 1899 was increased to 164,000. Ismay was also chairman of the Liverpool and London Steamship Protection Association, a director of the London and NorthWestern Railway Company, and of many other industrial enterprises. ”

“ In June Lyons and Symonds had found that they did not get on well together, and it was proposed to Mends to re-exchange into the Agamemnon, which he did. From that time his individuality is lost in that of the admiral, except that, as chief of Lyons's staff, he had the direction of many points of detail on which much depended. ”

“ Mends wad considered to have behaved very well in a position extremely difficult for one so young and inexperienced, and several of the members of the court offered to take him with them. After passing his examination he joined the Actaeon in the Mediterranean, which in 1832 was at Constantinople when a Russian army of upwards of twenty thousand men was there, consequent on the terrible defeat of the Turks by Ibrahim Pasha at Konieh. ”

“ In Germany there were many who affected to resent the intrusion of a foreigner among the princes of the empire ; but among his own subjects he speedily overcame hostile prejudices, adapting himself to his new duties and new surroundings, and taking an especial interest in all that concerned the agricultural and industrial prosperity of the duchies. ”

“ He spent more time, he says, in painting than in the study of mathematics, and, being married, refused to read for honours. But he continued his mechanical experiments, and especially with a small gauge for measuring the speed of ships, which he speaks of as a 'nautachometer,' but which has been more commonly called 'Berthon's log.' Here, again, by his experiments, he rediscovered the hydraulic principle enunciated long before by Bernoulli, of the sucking action of a stream of water crossing the end, or a small orifice near the end, of a pipe. ”

“ The original shareholders were gradually bought out till the whole was vested in the three families of Cunard, Burns, and McIver, and so it continued for many years, the Cunards managing its affairs in America, the brothers David and Charles McIver in Liverpool, and George and James Burns in Glasgow. Having acquired a princely fortune, George retired from the active management in 1860, purchased the estate of Wemyss Bay, and spent the remainder of his life mainly at Castle Wemyss, where he died on 2 June 1890. ”

“ In the autumn of 1835 he carried out a series of experiments with twin screws on a model three feet long, and arrived at the two-bladed propeller as now used. The model was then sent to the admiralty, but was returned some few weeks afterwards with the opinion that ' the screw was a pretty toy, which never would and never could propel a ship.' This so far discouraged Berthon that he never completed the patent and allowed the matter to rest. ”

“ But the most celebrated, the most practically useful of all his inventions was the collapsible boat, the idea of which first occurred to him after the terrible wreck of the steamer Orion off Portpatrick on 29 June 1849. ”

“ BURNS, Sir GEORGE, first baronet (1795–1890) , shipowner, youngest son of the Rev. John Burns (1744–1839) of Glasgow, younger brother of John Burns (1774–1850) [q. v.] and of Allan Burns (1781-1813) [q. v.] , was born in Glasgow on 10 Dec. ”

“ In November 1867 he was appointed commander-in-chief at Queenstown, where he remained until he retired, under Mr. Childers's scheme, in 1870. He was made a vice-admiral on 1 April 1870, K.C.B. on 29 May 1875, admiral on 22 Jan. 1877, and was granted a good-service pension on 30 Oct. 1885. He died on 10 March 1894. He married in 1847 Harriet Margaret, eldest daughter of Thomas Deane Shute of Bramshaw, Hampshire, and left issue one son. ”

“ On the other hand, the work has no literary pretensions; the bare facts are stated in the baldest possible way; the book is a register and nothing more; invaluable as a work of reference, but not intended to be read. Financially the book was not a success, as far as the author was concerned. An edition of two thousand was sold at 42s. a copy; but out of the proceeds 100l. was all that O'Byrne received as payment for six years' labour and expenses. In acknowledgment of the value of his work the admiralty awarded him 100l., and Sir Francis Thornhill Baring (Lord Northbrook) [q. v.] ”

“ At the time he thought them needlessly complicated and likely to be dangerous ; but in later life he seems to have better recognised the difficulties which Martin had to contend with, and to have acknowledged the merit of Martin's work. ”

“ The intervention of the western powers demanded the withdrawal of this force, and Mends was deeply interested in watching its embarkation, making careful notes of their manner and methods of embarking the cavalry and guns. Men, horses, and guns, with all their stores and baggage, were got on board within twelve hours, and Mends treasured up the experience for future use. ”

“ From 1786 to 1789 he commanded the Barracouta revenue cutter, and on 22 Nov. 1790 was promoted to command the Childers brig employed on the same service on the coast of Cornwall during 1791-2. On 2 Jan. 1793 he was sent to look into Brest and see what was doing. This the French would not allow, and fired on the brig. As the countries were still at peace. Barlow hoisted his colours, on which all the batteries within range opened on him; but the brig succeeded in getting out, one shot only — of 48lbs. — striking, but without doing any particular damage. ”

“ He held this office for about a year, and in May 1862 was appointed director of transports, with the duty of organising and administering the transport department of the admiralty. Here he remained for more than twenty years, during which period there were several exceptional calls on his office, which were answered in a manner that testified to the thorough working order in which things were kept. ”

“ In 1887 he was chairman of a committee of officers of the navy and marines for the presentation of a ‘jubilee offering’ to the queen. The presentation, of silver models of the Britannia, a first-rate ship of war in 1837, and of the Victoria, a first-class battleship of 1887, was actually made at Windsor on 22 Nov. ”

“ He was then for three years in the service of the East India Company, but in 1788 returned to the navy. After serving on the home Halifax, and East India stations, he was promoted to the rank of lieutenant on 13 Oct. ”

“ He married in 1850, Euphemia, daughter of Archibald Cochran of Ashkirk, Roxburghshire, and by her (who died on 1 Oct. 1889) left issue, besides two daughters, one son, Archibald Berkeley Milne, a captain in the navy, who succeeded to the baronetcy.
[O'Byrne's Nav. Biogr. Dict.; Men and Women of the Time, (1895) ; Times, 30 Dec. 1896 ; Burke's Peerage and Baronetage ; Navy Lists.] ”