Admiralty, and held this office for four years. In 1881 he was created K.C.B. in recognition of his services to the naval reserves, and in 1884 he was made parliamentary secretary to the Admiralty, a position which he held until the end of that parliament (1885). As civil lord his administrative responsibility was limited to the control of the works department and of Greenwich Hospital. He was more interested in other branches of naval affairs, and employed himself in writing detailed memoranda on all kinds of subjects for the benefit of his colleagues, who appreciated his keen interest in naval matters; but his productions, while full of facts, seldom led up to any concrete conclusion, and the effect of them was rather to ventilate the subject than to produce any tangible results. His short term as parliamentary secretary and spokesman of the Admiralty did not
add to his reputation, for he was no parliamentary debater nor quick at taking up points made against his department in the House of Commons. Brassey was not included in Mr. Gladstone’s 1885 government. He supported the Home Rule policy, and was defeated at Liverpool in the general election of 1886. In that year first appeared Brassey’s Naval Annual, which has been for many years the most authoritative survey of naval affairs throughout the world. He was raised to the peerage as Baron Brassey, of Bulkeley, Cheshire, on Mr. Gladstone’s resignation (1886).
Brassey served as lord-in-waiting to Queen Victoria from 1893 to 1895, when he was appointed governor of Victoria. His administration of Victoria coincided with the movement for the federation of the Australian colonies, and he played a considerable part in bringing this measure into effect. The Queen’s assent to the Commonwealth Act was given a few months after his departure (1900). He won a large measure of popularity among the people of Victoria and displayed his usual industry in lecturing and speaking on naval defence, imperial federation, and industrial subjects.
After his return to England Brassey was an incessant advocate, both at the Institute of Naval Architects, of which he was president (1893-1896), and in the House of Lords, of the employment of armed merchant ships as cruisers for the protection of British trade routes. His instinct was always to make the best use of material ready to hand rather than embark on the expense of new weapons. He preferred re-arming old battleships and subsidizing merchant cruisers to new construction, and using fishermen as reservists to increasing the personnel of the navy. He did not altogether appreciate the inadequacy of these measures in the days when scientific development had so far advanced and formidable rivals were creating powerful modern fleets.
In 1906 Brassey was promoted G.C.B., and in 1908 he was appointed lord warden of the Cinque Ports, a distinguished and congenial office which he retained for five years. At the coronation of King George V (1911) he was created Earl Brassey and Viscount Hythe. He died in London 28 February 1918.
Brassey was married twice: first, in 1860 to Anna (died 1887), only child of John Allnutt, of Charles Street, Berkeley Square; she was a devoted helper in his parliamentary career and in his yachting voyages; by her he had one son, Thomas Allnutt, second Earl Brassey, and four daughters; secondly, in 1890 to the Hon. Sybil de Vere Capell, youngest daughter of Viscount Malden, and granddaughter of the sixth Earl of Essex, by whom he had one daughter. The second Earl Brassey, a generous benefactor to the Bodleian Library and to Balliol College, Oxford, died without issue in 1919, and the title became extinct.
Lord Brassey was a rich man, of no outstanding ability but with great powers of industry, and of kindly, genial, and equable temperament. Throughout a long public life he spared neither time nor money in the public interest and in promoting the patriotic causes which he had most at heart. To his conscientious and persistent advocacy the royal navy, the naval reserves, the mercantile marine, and imperial federation are greatly indebted.
[Lord Brassey’s own numerous publications and compilations; private information.]
BRIDGES, Sir WILLIAM THROSBY (1861-1915), general, was born 18 February 1861, at Greenock, where his father, Captain William Wilson Somerset Bridges, R.N., was then stationed. Of an Essex family, Captain Bridges married a daughter of Charles Throsby, of New South Wales. Their son William was educated at a school in Ryde, Isle of Wight, at the Royal Naval School, Greenwich, at Trinity College School, Port Hope, Canada (his father having retired to that Dominion), and at the Canadian Military College, Kingston. While he was at the Military College his parents
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