Geoffrey Hornby

Admiral of the Fleet Sir Geoffrey Thomas Phipps Hornby GCB (10 February 1825 – 3 March 1895), was a British naval officer.

Early life
He was the son of Admiral Sir Phipps Hornby, elder brother of James John Hornby, the first cousin and brother-in-law of Edward Stanley, 13th Earl of Derby, by a daughter of Lieutenant-General Burgoyne, commonly distinguished as "Saratoga" Burgoyne.

At the age of twelve he was sent to sea in the flagship of Sir Robert Stopford, with whom he saw the capture of Acre in November 1840. He afterwards served in the flagship of Rear-Admiral Josceline Percy at the Cape of Good Hope, was flag-lieutenant to his father in the Pacific, and came home as a commander. When the ministry of Edward Smith-Stanley, 14th Earl of Derby, fell in December 1852, young Hornby was promoted to be captain. Early in 1853 he married, and as the Derby connexion put him out of favour with ministry of George Hamilton-Gordon, 4th Earl of Aberdeen, and especially with Sir James Graham, the First Lord of the Admiralty, he settled down in Sussex as manager of his father's property.

Captain and Commodore
He had no appointment in the Royal Navy until 1858, when he was sent out to China to take command of the Tribune frigate and convey a body of marines to Vancouver Island, where the dispute with the United States about the San Juan Islands was threatening to become very bitter. As senior naval officer there Hornby's moderation, temper and tact did much to smooth over matters, and a temporary arrangement for joint occupation of the island was concluded. He afterwards commanded the Neptune in the Mediterranean under Sir William Fanshawe Martin, was flag-captain to Rear-Admiral Sydney Dacres in the Channel, was commodore of the squadron on the west coast of Africa, and, being promoted to rear-admiral in January 1869, commanded the flying squadron for a couple of years.

Admiral
In 1871 he appointed to command the Channel Fleet and in 1874 he was made Second Naval Lord. It was early in 1877 that he was appointed Commander-in-Chief, Mediterranean Fleet, where his skill in manoeuvring the fleet, his power as a disciplinarian, and the tact and determination with which he conducted the foreign relations at the time of the Russian advance on Constantinople, won for him the distinction of Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath. He returned home in 1880 with the character of being perhaps the most able commander on the active list of the navy.

His later appointments were as President of the Royal Naval College, Greenwich in 1881 and as Commander-in-Chief, Portsmouth in 1882. On hauling down his flag he was appointed Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath, and in May 1888 was promoted to be admiral of the fleet. From 1886 he was principal naval aide-de-camp to Queen Victoria, and in that capacity, and as an admiral of the fleet, was appointed to the staff of the German emperor Wilhelm II during his visits to England in 1889 and 1890. He died, after a short illness, on 3 March 1895.

Children and Reputation
By his wife, who predeceased him, he left several children, daughters and sons, one of whom, a major in the artillery, won the Victoria Cross in South Africa in 1900. His life was written by his daughter, Mrs Fred. Egerton, (1896). Although almost his entire career was spent in peacetime, Hornby was regarded as not only an able administrator but also a brilliant handler of ships who did most to evolve new tactics as the navy finally abandoned sail for steam power, turret ships, and the threat of the torpedo. Sir John Fisher, who served under him in the Mediterranean, wrote that he was 'the finest Admiral afloat since Nelson. [...] There never lived a more noble character or a greater seaman. He was incomparable'. He was also regarded as an intellectual among naval officers, very widely read. The naval historian Sir William Laird Clowes, who knew him well, wrote that '... he was a natural diplomatist, and an unrivalled tactician; and, to a singular independence and uprightness of character, he added a mastery of technical detail, and a familiarity with contemporary thought and progress that were unusual in those days among officers of his standing'.