George Tryon

Sir George Tryon, K.C.B. (4 January, 1832 – 22 June, 1893) was an officer of the Royal Navy, who lost his life in the infamous loss of H.M.S. Victoria in 1893.

Early Life and Career

Tryon, naval officer, third son of Thomas Tryon (d. 1872) of Bulwick Park, Northamptonshire, and his wife, Anne (d. 1877), daughter of Sir John Trollope, sixth baronet, was born on 4 January 1832. The Tryons are believed to have been of Dutch origin, but had resided at Bulwick since the reign of James I. After some years at Eton College he entered the navy in the spring of 1848, as a naval cadet on board the Wellesley, then fitting for the flag of Lord Dundonald as commander-in-chief of the North American station. He was somewhat older than was usual, and bigger. When he passed for midshipman he was over eighteen, and was more than 6 feet tall. His size helped to give him authority, and his age gave him steadiness and application; zeal and force of character were natural gifts, and when the Wellesley was paid off in June 1851 he had won the very high opinion of his commanding officer. A few weeks later he was appointed to the Vengeance (Captain Lord Edward Russell) for the Mediterranean station, where he still was at the outbreak of the Crimean War. On 15 March 1854 he passed his examination in seamanship, but continuing in the Vengeance, from her maintop he watched the battle of the Alma, in which his two elder brothers fought. Shortly after the battle of Inkerman he was landed for service with the naval brigade, and a few days later was made a lieutenant in a death vacancy of 21 October; the admiral wrote to him, ‘You owe it to the conduct and character which you bear in the service’. In January 1855 Tryon was re-embarked and returned to Britain in the Vengeance; but when he had passed his examination at Portsmouth, he was again sent out to the Black Sea as a lieutenant of the Royal Albert, flagship of Sir Edmund Lyons, whose captain, William Mends, had been the commander of the Vengeance. The Royal Albert returned to Spithead in the summer of 1858, formed part of Queen Victoria's escort to Cherbourg in July, and was paid off in August. In November Tryon was appointed to the royal yacht, at the request of his father's friend Lord Derby, the prime minister. This ensured his promotion to commander on 25 October 1860.

In June 1861 Tryon was selected to be the commander of the Warrior, the first British seagoing ironclad, then preparing for her first commission. This was a prestigious appointment and Tryon made the most of it; he also came into contact with John Fisher, the ship's gunnery lieutenant. Tryon remained in the Warrior, attached to the Channel Fleet, until July 1864, when he was appointed to an independent command in the Mediterranean, the gun-vessel Surprise, which he brought home and paid off in April 1866. He was then (11 April) promoted captain. During the next year he went through a course of theoretical study at the Royal Naval College, Portsmouth, and in August 1867 was away fishing in Norway, when he was recalled to go out as director of transports in Annesley Bay, where the troops and stores were landed for the Abyssinian expedition to rescue the hostages at Magdala. The work, neither interesting nor exciting, was extremely hard in a sweltering and unhealthy climate. Tryon's talent for organization, his foresight and clear-headedness, his care and his intimate knowledge of details impressed other officers, naval and military. He also won the esteem and regard of the masters of the transports—who were not always very amenable to discipline—and after his return to Britain they presented him with a handsome service of plate in commemoration of their gratitude. His health, however, was severely tried, and for some months after his return to Britain he was very much of an invalid. On 5 April 1869 he married Clementina Charlotte, daughter of Gilbert John Heathcote, first Lord Aveland, and then went for a tour in Italy and central Europe, before settling down in the autumn near Doncaster.

In April 1871 Tryon was appointed private secretary to George Joachim Goschen, then first lord of the Admiralty; and, though his want of time and service as a captain might easily have caused some jealousy or friction, his good-humoured tact and ready wit overcame all difficulties, and won for him the confidence of the navy as well as of Goschen. In January 1874 he was appointed to the large frigate Raleigh; he commanded her for more than three years in the flying squadron, in attendance on the prince of Wales during his tour in India, and in the Mediterranean. In June 1877 he was appointed one of a committee for the revision of the signal-book and the manual of fleet evolutions, and in October 1878 took command of the Monarch, in the Mediterranean, one of the fleet with Sir Geoffrey Hornby in the Sea of Marmora, and in the autumn of 1880 with Sir Frederick Beauchamp Paget Seymour (afterwards Lord Alcester) in the international demonstration against the Turks in the Adriatic. During the summer and autumn of 1881 Tryon was specially employed as senior officer on the coast of Tunis, and by his ‘sound judgment and discretion’ gained the approval of the foreign secretary and the lords of the Admiralty. In January 1882 the Monarch was paid off at Malta, and shortly after his return to Britain Tryon was appointed secretary of the Admiralty, an office he held until April 1884, and in the autumn of 1882 he was largely responsible for the establishment of what became the naval intelligence division.

On 1 April 1884 Tryon was promoted rear-admiral, and in December he left Britain to take the command-in-chief of the Australian station, where, during the Russian war ‘scare’ of 1885 and afterwards, he formulated the scheme of colonial defence which was subsequently implemented. In June 1887 he returned to Britain; on the 21st he was nominated a KCB (a jubilee promotion). That September he stood as a Conservative candidate for the constituency of Spalding, without success. After a few months' holiday, including a season's shooting, he was appointed in April 1888 superintendent of reserves, which carried with it also the duty of commanding one of the opposing fleets in the summer manoeuvres. This Tryon performed for three years, bringing into the contest a degree of vigour which, especially in 1889, went far to solve some of the strategic questions then discussed in naval circles. He also at this time wrote an article on ‘National insurance’ (United Service Magazine, May 1890), in which he put forward a scheme for the protection of commerce, and especially of the supply of food in time of war. This scheme was not favourably received by shipowners and merchants, and, indeed, Tryon's principal object was probably rather to lift the discussion out of the academic or abstract groove into which it had fallen, and to force people to consider the question as one of the gravest practical importance. The subsequent introduction of such a scheme in time for the First World War indicated his concept.

On 15 August 1889 Tryon became a vice-admiral, and in August 1891 he was appointed to command the Mediterranean Fleet, where, as often as circumstances permitted, he collected his force to practise the naval drill in shiphandling and squadron cohesion, commonly termed evolutions, on a grand scale. There was subsequently much discussion about his methods, and especially about one—manoeuvring without signals—which was widely denounced as most dangerous, and, in fact, suicidal. But Tryon conceived it to be the best and most fitting training for the manoeuvres of battle. It was repeatedly practised by the fleet without any untoward incident, and it had nothing to do with the dreadful accident which closed Tryon's career. The manoeuvre which resulted in that calamity was ordered deliberately, by signal.

Death

On the morning of 22 June 1893 the fleet weighed from Beirut, and a little after 2 p.m. was off Tripoli, where it was intended to anchor. Battleships then had pointed ram bows, designed to slice open and sink an opponent's hull. The ships were formed in two columns 1200 yards apart; and about half-past three the signal was made to invert the course in succession, turning inwards, the leading ships first. The two leading ships were the battleship Victoria, Tryon's flagship, and the battleship Camperdown, with his second in command, Rear-Admiral Albert Hastings Markham. It was clear to everyone, except Tryon, that the distance between the columns was too small to permit the ships to turn together in the manner prescribed, and by some, at least, of the captains, it was supposed that Tryon's intention was for the Victoria and the ships astern of her to turn on a large circle, so as to pass outside the Camperdown and the ships of the 2nd division. That this was not so was only realized when it was seen that the two ships, turning at the same time, both inwards, must necessarily come in collision. They did so. It was a question of but two or three seconds as to which should give, which should receive the blow. The Victoria happened to be by this time ahead of the Camperdown; she received the blow from the ram bow on her starboard bow, which was cut open. She rapidly flooded, as her watertight doors had not been secured, and then turned over and plunged head first to the bottom. The boats of the other ships were immediately sent to render assistance but the loss of life was very great. Tryon went down with the ship, and was never seen again. The most probable explanation of the disaster seems to be a simple miscalculation by Tryon, a momentary forgetfulness that two ships turning inwards needed twice the space that one did. As the two ships were approaching each other and the collision was seen to be inevitable, Tryon was heard to say ‘It is entirely my fault’. His wife survived him.

Tryon's powerful political connections quickly compensated for his late entry into the service, although his merit was always obvious. Tryon was a man of immense stature. Physically imposing, unusually tall and very stout, he was equally impressive in debate, his intellect being quick and incisive. Throughout his career he had taken on the most difficult tasks, and excelled in them. Had he avoided the disastrous error that ended his life, he would surely have taken up the post of first sea lord and contributed much more to the revitalization of the Royal Navy, ensuring that it adopted a modern tactical system.

Wealth at death; £34,794 17s. 2d.: Probate; 14 Sept 1893.