Vernon Lushington

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Vernon Lushington, K.C. (8 March, 1832 – 24 January, 1912) was a lawyer who served as Permanent Secretary to the Board of Admiralty from 1869 to 1877.

He was one of the five sons of Stephen Lushington, an ecclesiastical lawyer and politician. He served in the Royal Navy as a Naval Cadet in the corvette Eurydice from 1846 to 1849. Having lost three months' seniority for misconduct, at some point after Eurydice paid off he requested his discharge from the Service.[1] He studied at Trinity College, Cambridge, and was called to the Bar at the Inner Temple in 1857. In 1864 he was appointed Deputy Judge-Advocate-General of the Navy. In 1869 he was appointed Permanent Secretary to the Board of Admiralty by the new First Lord of the Admiralty, Hugh C. E. Childers. Lushington's maternal aunt was married to Childers' paternal uncle, a fact not remarked upon by historians before.[2]

Footnotes

  1. Lushington service record. The National Archives. ADM 196/36/2064.
  2. It was noticed by someone at the time. "A Flag Officer" referred to Lushington as Childers' "near relative and nominee" in a letter to The Times in 1872. "The Phantom Board of Admiralty", The Times, 31 January 1872, 4.