Charles Beresford, 1st Baron Beresford

Lord Charles Beresford, 1914

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Charles William de la Poer Beresford, 1st Baron Beresford GCB , GCVO (born February 10, 1846 in Philipstown (now Daingean ), King's County , Ireland , †  September 6, 1919 in Langwell , Caithness , Scotland ) was a British admiral and politician . He was considered by the British public to be the personification of John Bull . He cultivated this image; his trademark was a bulldog that accompanied him regularly.

Military career

Beresford was the second son of Irish nobleman John Beresford, 4th Marquess of Waterford . As the son of a marquess, he used the courtesy address of Lord Charles Beresford. He joined the Royal Navy in December 1859 , accompanied the Prince of Wales, later King Edward VII , on his journey to British India from 1875 to 1876 as the latter's aide-de-camp and was deputy in command of the from 1878 to 1881 royal yacht HMS Osborne .

In 1882 Beresford distinguished himself as commander of the gunboat HMS Condor during the bombardment and subsequent occupation of Alexandria in the course of the suppression of the Urabi uprising .

Beresford took part in Sir Garnet Wolseley's Gordon Relief Expedition in 1884/85 for the relief of General Gordon in Khartoum before the Mahdi uprising . He was wounded in the battle of Abu Klea . On January 24, Beresford set out with General Wilson on two steamers for Khartoum and reached the city on January 28, two days after it fell and Gordon was killed.

Since June 25, 1875, Beresford was married to Mina Gardner, with whom he had two daughters, Kathleen and Eileen Theresa Lucy.

Politics and Fleet

As early as 1874 he was elected as a Conservative member of the House of Commons for County Waterford and remained so until 1880. Between 1885 and 1889 he was elected for Marylebone East , for York 1898–1899, for Woolwich 1902–1903 and for Portsmouth since 1910 In Parliament he sharply criticized the British naval facilities at the beginning of the 20th century.

Between 1886 and 1888 Beresford held the office of Lord of the Admiralty , he was appointed Rear Admiral in 1897 . In 1898 he visited China as a representative of the United Chambers of Commerce . He reported on this in his work The break-up of China (1899). Between 1900 and 1902 he was second in command of the Mediterranean Fleet , then was put up for election as Vice Admiral when he was again elected to parliament.

In 1903 he returned to active service and was appointed commander of the Canal Fleet. In December 1904 he commanded the Mediterranean fleet. Between 1907 and 1909 he was again in command of the Canal Fleet. During this time the conflict fell between Beresford and the First Sea Lord Sir John Fisher , who kept the Royal Navy busy internally at the beginning of the 20th century. Fisher and Beresford were seasoned naval officers, but had different views on the reform of the fleet and the future of the Royal Navy. In addition, class differences between the social climber Fisher and the noble Beresford played a role, which also came about that Beresford wanted to become First Sea Lord himself and Fisher viewed as a career obstacle. The rivalry ended when Beresford returned to the House of Commons in 1909 and Fisher resigned from his position in 1910.

Charles Beresford retired from the Royal Navy in 1911, but remained a Member of Parliament until 1916. He resigned from the House of Commons when he was raised to Baron Beresford , of Metummeh and Curraghmore in the County of Waterford on January 28, 1916 , and thus rose to the House of Lords . He died on September 6, 1919 in Langwell, Caithness, Scotland. He was honored with a state ceremony in St Paul's Cathedral in London and then buried in Putney Vale Cemetery . His title expired because he had no male descendants.

Works

• Nelson and His Times. Harmsworth Brothers, London 1897.
• The Break-Up of China. With an Account of Its Present Commerce, Currency, Waterways, Armies, Railways, Politics, and Future Prospects. Harper & Brothers, New York et al. 1899 ( archive.org ).
• The Betrayal. Being a Record of Facts Concerning Naval Policy and Administration from the Year 1902 to the Present Time. PS King and Son, London 1912 ( archive.org ).
• The Memoirs of Admiral Lord Charles Beresford. Little, Brown, and Co., Boston 1914. 2 volumes: ( 1  - Internet Archive - 2  - Internet Archive ).

literature

• Beresford, Lord Charles William de la Poer . In: Encyclopædia Britannica . 11th edition. tape 3 : Austria - Bisectrix . London 1910, p. 770 (English, full text [ Wikisource ]).
• VW Baddeley: Beresford, Charles William de la Poer, Baron Beresford (1846–1919). In: Henry Colin Gray Matthew, Brian Harrison (Eds.): Oxford Dictionary of National Biography , from the earliest times to the year 2000 (ODNB). Oxford University Press, Oxford 2004, ISBN 0-19-861411-X , ( oxforddnb.com license required ), as of May 2008 rev. Paul G. Halpern, not viewed.
• Geoffrey Penn: Infighting Admirals. Fisher's Feud with Beresford and the Reactionaries. Leo Cooper, Barnsley 2000.

Web links

Commons : Charles Beresford, 1st Baron Beresford  - Collection of Pictures, Videos and Audio Files

• Lord Charles Beresford in the Hansard (English)