William Edmund Goodenough

Sir William Edmund Goodenough GCB , MVO (born June 2, 1867 in Portsmouth , † January 30, 1945 in Coulsdon , Surrey ) was a British admiral in the Royal Navy .

Life

Goodenough was born the son of a naval officer and trained as a midshipman on the training ship HMS Britannia from 1880 . This was followed by a service mainly on overseas stations. In 1882 he was promoted to midshipman and in 1886 to sub-lieutenant . In 1900 Goodenough was promoted to commander and received command of the battleship HMS Resolution in the Channel Fleet . The following year he moved to the newly commissioned HMS Formidable , with which he served until 1905 in the Mediterranean Fleet . On January 1, 1905, he was promoted to captain .

Goodenough's next post was that of Commandant of the Royal Naval College Dartmouth until 1907 . He then served for a year as flag captain under John Jellicoe on the HMS Albemarle in the Atlantic Fleet , then until 1910 on the HMS Duncan in the Mediterranean Fleet under George Callaghan . In 1910 Goodenenough received command of the armored cruiser HMS Cochrane . With his ship, he escorted King George V on the way to Delhi Durbar of 1911. In the same year he was appointed commander of the newly commissioned Dreadnought -Schlachtschiffs HMS Colossus appointed to the 2nd Battle Squadron of the Home Fleet was assigned.

In July 1913, Goodenough was promoted to commodore and took command of the 1st Light Cruiser Squadron with the flagship HMS Southampton . In this role he also experienced the beginning of the First World War . As the only light cruiser squadron of the Grand Fleet , Goodenough's squadron had a variety of tasks to take on at the beginning of the war. At the end of August 1914 it took part in the sea ​​battle near Helgoland and in January 1915 in the battle on the Dogger Bank. In May 1916, its squadron was renamed the 2nd Light Cruiser Squadron . With this Goodenough took part in the Battle of the Skagerrak , after which he was promoted to Rear Admiral . Towards the end of the year he took over the 2nd Division of the 2nd Battle Squadron on board the HMS Orion .

After the end of the war he was made Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath and served as Superintendent of Chatham Dockyard until 1920 . This was followed by command of Africa Station until 1922 and promotion to Vice Admiral . He then commanded the Reserve Fleet until 1924, after which he became Commander-in-Chief, The Nore . In May 1925 he was promoted to full admiral. In 1930 he served as the King's First and Principal Naval Aide-de-Camp before retiring from active service. In retirement, he was President of the Royal Geographical Society from 1930 to 1933 .

literature

• William Stewart: Admirals of the World: A Biographical Dictionary, 1500 to the Present. McFarland, 2009, p. 144.

Web links

• Sir William Edmund Goodenough on historyofwar.org
• William Goodenough on firstworldwar.com