Dictionary of National Biography, 1927 supplement/Warrender, George John Scott
WARRENDER, Sir GEORGE JOHN SCOTT, seventh baronet (1860–1917), admiral, was born 31 July 1860. He was the second son of Sir George Warrender, sixth baronet, of Lochend, East Lothian, by his wife, Helen, only child of Sir Hugh Hume-Campbell, seventh baronet, of Marchmont, Berwickshire. He entered the royal navy in 1873, and saw service, while still a midshipman, in the Zulu War (1879). During the whole of his career he was entirely dependent upon his mental abilities for advancement. His family connexions gave him access to rather wider and more cultured circles than are ordinarily open to naval officers, and he made full use of his opportunities. In 1879 he qualified as an interpreter in French—a rare distinction in those days—and later obtained high honours in his lieutenant's examination. Like many of the ablest officers of the mid-Victorian navy he specialized in gunnery, as it was obvious to the more thoughtful members of the service that the rapid progress of marine engineering would be accompanied by an enormous development in the gunnery arm. After this his promotion was rapid. He was made a commander in 1893, a captain in 1899, and rose finally to flag rank in 1908. During the Boxer rising (1900) he served as flag captain in the Barfleur and was largely responsible for organizing the operations in which the navy was engaged.
During Admiral Warrender's service as a flag officer between 1908 and 1914, the navy was again passing through a period of rapid and drastic change. The development of the torpedo arm had shaken the principles upon which battle tactics had hitherto been based, and simultaneously British naval strategy underwent a complete revolution with the disappearance of France as a maritime rival, and the rapid growth of German naval power. Warrender commanded squadrons in all the fleet manœuvres designed to test the new situation, and was partly responsible for the new rules of naval warfare which were evolved from them.
In May 1914 he was sent to Kiel, as commander of the second battle squadron, for the celebrations of the Kaiser's birthday. Nobody realized at the moment the near approach of war; but a feeling of tension was general in naval circles, and in any case the visit had a deep political significance. Of all the naval officers of his day Warrender was perhaps the most fitted to undertake the duty of making a diplomatic naval visit to a rival power. He made a deep impression upon his hosts, and the German liaison officer attached to the British flagship has left a vivid picture of his courtesy and tact [Georg von Hase, Zwei Weissen Völker, 1920].
In August 1914 Admiral Warrender was in command of the second battle squadron of the grand fleet, and in December became the leading figure in one of the most remarkable operations of the War. On the 14th of that month the Admiralty became aware that the Germans intended to attack the East coast, and, assuming on purely negative evidence that the high seas fleet was not going to support the movement, detached a force of battleships and cruisers to cut off the raiders. Admiral Warrender, in command of this intercepting force, was thus left to operate in the middle of the North Sea without any possibility of being supported by the grand fleet in an emergency. As a matter of fact the high seas fleet did come out, and, but for Admiral von Ingenohl's timid leadership, the British might have suffered disaster. The German raiders, operating in advance of the high seas fleet, bombarded Scarborough, Whitby, and Hartlepool during the early morning of the 16th, and then made for home. In the meanwhile Warrender, after his destroyers had twice obtained contact with the advanced screen of the high seas fleet, got across the returning track of the raiders, and sent his faster force of battle cruisers in towards Scarborough. Unfortunately, his orders to press in to a position within sixty miles of the coast were not carried out; and the Germans escaped by a narrow margin. It would be hard to find an operation more pregnant with possibilities and dramatic changes. At six o'clock in the morning, Ingenohl had Warrender's force almost at his mercy; six hours later, all danger from the German high seas fleet had disappeared, and the utter destruction of the German raiders seemed certain; one hour after that, all the opposing forces engaged were steaming away from one another on diverging courses.
At the end of 1915 Admiral Warrender was promoted to the post of commander-in-chief at Plymouth. Throughout the year 1916 he watched the steady growth of the submarine campaign in the western approaches to the Channel, and was painfully conscious that no remedy or counter to it had yet been found. He realized quite clearly that a campaign of far greater intensity was inevitable; but he did not live to see it. On 6 December he laid down his command owing to ill-health, and died in London a month later (8 January 1917). Admiral Warrender, who succeeded to the baronetcy in 1901, married in 1894 Lady Ethel Maud Ashley, fifth daughter of the eighth Earl of Shaftesbury, and left two sons and one daughter.
[Sir Julian S. Corbett, Official History of the War. Naval Operations, vol. ii, 1921; private information.]