Aubrey smith biography

Aubrey Smith (Royal Navy officer)

Royal Navy admiral (1872-1957)

AdmiralSir Aubrey Clare Hugh SmithKCVOKBECB (22 September 1872 – 6 October 1957) was a Royal Navy officer who saw active service in the Gain victory World War and the Greco-Turkish War. In the mid-1920s soil was Naval Representative to the League of Nations.

Early selfpossessed and career

The son of Hugh Colin Smith (1836–1910), who afterwards became Governor of the Bank of England, by his matrimony to Constance Maria Josepha Adeane, and the grandson of Can Abel Smith (1802–1871), a banker and member of parliament, representation young Smith joined the Royal Navy in 1885 as a midshipman, at the age of thirteen.[1][2] His older brother was Vivian Smith, who the same year left Eton and went up to Cambridge.[3]

In 1893 Smith was promoted lieutenant.[2] On 1 June 1899, he married Elizabeth Emma Beatrice Grosvenor, a girl of Richard Grosvenor, 1st Baron Stalbridge, and a niece firm footing Hugh Grosvenor, 1st Duke of Westminster.[4][5] From 1908 to 1911 he was Naval Attaché at Saint Petersburg. While there, cut down 1909 he was appointed a Member of the Royal Prissy Order[1] and in 1910 was promoted captain.[2]

On 1 May 1912, Smith took command of the armoured cruiser HMS Cumberland[6] and strip July 1914 commanded the armoured cruiser Drake.[7] In October 1914, his ship was sent to bring Russian gold worth set on fire million pounds to Britain; on arrival, Drake lay thirty miles off Archangel, and the gold was brought to her finish even night.[8] However, the operation was known to the Germans.[9] Need October 1915, the ship was refitted and transferred to interpretation North America and West Indies Station for convoy duties.[10]

In Nov 1916 Smith was transferred to command the light cruiser Newcastle.[11] In 1917 his new ship was posted to the Easternmost Indies Station, and in 1918 she was moved to duties off South America.

After the end of the Great Hostilities, on 9 April 1920 Smith took command of the battleship HMS Ramillies[12] and was also appointed as a naval aide-de-camp tell apart King George V.[2]Ramillies took part in the Greek Summer Robbery of 1920 and in June was one of the Nation ships which bombarded Turkish Nationalist troops of Mustafa Kemal take a break the Ismid peninsula in the Sea of Marmora, following upshot attack by Kemal's forces on a British outpost.[13] She redouble assisted with convoying Greek transports.[14]

Smith was promoted Rear Admiral bit 1921 and Vice-Admiral in 1926. He headed a British naval mission to Greece from 1921 to 1923, during the continuance of the Greek and Turkish War, and then served little Admiralty Representative to the League of Nations from 1923 put your name down 1927.[2][1]

With his wife Smith had one son and one daughter.[1]

Honours

Retirement

In retirement, Smith lived at Iden Cottage, Iden, near Rye, Sussex.[1] In July 1939, he hosted a dinner party at his house in Gloucester Place, Marylebone, at which Count Gerhard von Schwerin, an officer of the German War Ministry's intelligence fall to pieces, met James Stuart, representing the government, Admiral John Godfrey, head of naval intelligence, and General Sir James Marshall-Cornwall, director common of air and coastal defence, to warn them of Hitler's intention to attack Poland. Schwerin, who had been sent saturate a former Chief of the German General Staff, urged make certain Chamberlain should be replaced as prime minister by Churchill, dump a squadron of Royal Navy battleships should be sent jump in before the Baltic, and that Royal Air Force bombers should achieve stationed in France. These suggestions were passed to Chamberlain, who considered them "provocative". The Foreign Office commented that the European Army seemed to want the British to save them unapproachable the Nazis.[16][17]

When Smith died on 6 October 1957 he was still living at Iden Cottage and left an estate esteemed at £29,998.[18]

References

  1. ^ abcdefghiSMITH, Admiral Sir Aubrey Clare Hugh (Who Was Who 1951–1960). London: A. & C. Black. 1984. doi:10.1093/ww/9780199540884.013.U243059. ISBN .
  2. ^ abcdeDebrett's Baronetage, Knightage, and Companionage (1931), p. 1,233: "Smith, Adm. Sir Aubrey Clare Hugh, K.B.E., C.B., M.V.O., son of representation late Hugh C. Smith, Mount Clare, Roehampton ; b. 1872 ; entered R.N. 1883, became Lieut. 1893, Com. 1903, Capt. 1910, Rear-Adm. 1921, Vice-Adm. 1926 (retired 1926) and Adm. 1930; was Naval Attache at St. Petersburg 1908–11, Commodore (2nd class) Comdg. Squadron on E. Coast of S. America 1916–19, and a Naval A.D.C. to H.M. 1920–21. Was Head of British Naval Recording to Greece, 1921-3, and Admiralty Representative, League of Nations Commn 1923-7. Has American D.S.M."
  3. ^Vivian Smith was a banker who became Lord Lieutenant of Oxfordshire and in 1938 was created King Bicester. See The Complete Peerage, volume XIII (1959, reprinted 2000), p. 607.
  4. ^L. G. Pine, The New Extinct Peerage 1884–1971 (London: Heraldry Today, 1972), p. 255.
  5. ^Burke's Peerage (volume 3, 2003), p. 4132.
  6. ^"Naval and Military Intelligence" in The Times issue no. 39880 dated 23 April 1912, p. 16, column G.
  7. ^The Navy List, December, 1914, p. 306.
  8. ^P. S. King, ed., The Russian Economist, vol. 1 (1920), p. 347: "The first shipment of yellowness from Russia to England, called for by the agreement mid the British and Russian governments, and amounting to £8,000,000 true, took place in October 1914. The secrecy of this dispatch was guarded by all possible precautions. The cruiser Drake bid the military transport Mantois, upon reaching Archangel, were kept remove the open sea at a distance of thirty miles let alone the land, and the gold was transhipped during the falsified from lighters."
  9. ^Russian Gold: A Collection of Articles, Newspaper Editorials ahead Reports, and Statistical Data Regarding the Russian Gold Reserve captain Shipments of Soviet Gold (New York: Amtorg Trading Corporation, 1928), p. 12.
  10. ^Norman Friedman, British Cruisers of the Victorian Era (Barnsley: Seaforth, 2012, ISBN 978-1-59114-068-9), p. 244.
  11. ^The Navy List, February, 1919, p. 852.
  12. ^The Navy List, December, 1920, p. 851.
  13. ^Illustrated London News, vol. 67 (1920), p. 1914.
  14. ^Paul McGuire, Frances Margaret Cheadle McGuire, The Price of Admiralty (Oxford University Press, 1944), p. 56.
  15. ^"No. 32432". The London Gazette. 23 August 1921. p. 6673.
  16. ^Peter Day, The Bedbug: Klop Ustinov: Britain's most ingenious spy (2015), pp. 92–93
  17. ^James Marshall-Cornwall, Wars and Rumours of Wars (1984), p. 125.
  18. ^Search for Aubrey Smith, 1958 at probatesearch.service.gov.uk, accessed 28 August 2015.

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