Difference between revisions of "Edward Barry Stewart Bingham"

Revision as of 10:33, 11 December 2016

Rear-Admiral Edward Barry Stewart Bingham, V.C., O.B.E., Royal Navy (26 July, 1881 – 24 September, 1939) was an officer in the Royal Navy.

Life & Career

Bingham was born in Bangor Castle, Ireland, the third son of the fifth Lord Clanmorris.^[1][2]

Bingham was promoted to the rank of Lieutenant on 30 June, 1903.^[3]

On 30 September, 1904, Bingham ended an appointment in Bulwark to command unspecified torpedo boats.^[4]

Bingham was appointed in command of the destroyer Star on 25 April, 1905.^[5]

Bingham was promoted to the rank of Lieutenant-Commander on 30 June, 1911.^[6]

Great War

At the beginning of the war, Bingham was appointed to the battlecruiser Invincible, remaining there until 4 January, 1915, having been specially promoted to Commander on 31 December for his part in the Battle of the Falklands. On 7 February, he was appointed to command Hornet.^[7]

In early 1915, while captain of the destroyer Hornet, Bingham weathered ferocious weather conditions that stove in the bridge railings of his sub-divisional mate, Tigress.^[8] On 28 October, Hornet and Jackal deviated from a patrol to assist the armoured cruiser Argyll, which had run hard aground off Dundee. Judging that time was critical, Bingham went right in to the larger ship, and men jumped in batches when the time seemed right. Bingham took on about 500 men without mishap in this daring rescue. Jackal took off the remainder, entirely without loss.^[9]

Offsetting this coup to some degree, Bingham was faulted for a collision between Sandfly and Tigress some time in 1915. The Vice-Admiral commanding Third Battle Squadron judged that Bingham had cut too closely to another vessel and without indicating his intentions to the next ship astern before so doing.^[10]

On 18 May, 1915, he married Vera Maude Temple-Patterson.^[11]

He was appointed in command of Nestor on April, 1916 and would command her as part of the Thirteenth Destroyer Flotilla at the Battle of Jutland, where she was lost after an engineering casualty brought her to a standstill.^[12] Bingham wound up as a prisoner of war after being scooped up by the Germans. On 27 July, 1916 the British learned he'd been moved to an officers' detention centre in Freiberg. On 4 May, 1917, he was moved to Augustabad.^[13]

Bingham was repatriated soon after the war and was invested with the Victoria Cross at Buckingham Palace on 13 December, 1918.^[14]

Post-War

Bingham was promoted to the rank of Captain on 31 December, 1919 on the recommendation of Admiral Sturdee.^[15]

He was appointed in command of the yacht Enchantress in September, 1920.^[16]

In May, 1931, Bingham was appointed in command of the light cruiser Comus.

His marriage to Vera would end in 1937, though it had yielded a son and a daughter. He would die in 1939, aged 58 in a London nursing home.^[17]

See Also

Footnotes

Template:CatRearAdmiral