Edward Heaton-Ellis
Encyclopedia
Vice-Admiral Sir Edward Henry Fitzhardinge Heaton-Ellis KBE
CB
MVO
(19 November 1868–23 February 1943) was a British
Royal Navy
officer.
Heaton-Ellis was born in Wyddial
, Hertfordshire
. He joined HMS Britannia
as a Naval Cadet in 1882. In 1884 he was promoted Midshipman
and joined the composite screw corvette
HMS Opal
on the Cape of Good Hope and West Africa Station
. He was commissioned Sub-Lieutenant
in 1889 and promoted Lieutenant
in 1892. In 1897 he took command of HMS Hardy
, one of the first destroyer
s, at Portsmouth
. He was promoted Commander
in 1903.
In 1905 he took command of the scout cruiser
HMS Sentinel
in the Mediterranean. While there he escorted HMY Victoria and Albert
during King Edward VII's
visit to Malta
and was appointed Member of the Royal Victorian Order (MVO). In 1907 he was appointed naval attaché in Paris
, and later served in the same capacity in Madrid
, Lisbon
and Brussels
until 1911. He was promoted Captain
in 1908.
In February 1914 he became Assistant Director of the Naval Intelligence Division
at the Admiralty
in London
. In April 1915 he took command of the battlecruiser
HMS Inflexible
. At the Battle of Jutland
in 1916 the 3rd Battlecruiser Squadron flagship
, HMS Invincible
, was hit and blew up, but Heaton-Ellis led the squadron forwards past the wreck of the flagship so brazenly that the Germans thought the Inflexible must be the leading ship of the British battle fleet and swerved away. For these services he was appointed Companion of the Order of the Bath (CB).
In November 1916, Heaton-Ellis was appointed chief of staff
to Rear-Admiral Sir William Pakenham, commanding the Battlecruiser Squadron, in HMS Lion
. In August 1917 he was appointed Naval Liaison Officer in Paris with the rank of Commodore
. He was promoted Rear-Admiral in October 1919 and retired a few months later, although he was promoted Vice-Admiral on the retired list in 1925.
Heaton-Ellis was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in 1919 and Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire (KBE) in the 1920 New Year Honours.
He was president of the Navigators' and Engineer Officers' Union from 1937 and superintendent of the Watts Naval School
in Norfolk
from 1939 to 1941.
Both of his sons were killed in the First World War.
Order of the British Empire
The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is an order of chivalry established on 4 June 1917 by George V of the United Kingdom. The Order comprises five classes in civil and military divisions...
CB
Order of the Bath
The Most Honourable Order of the Bath is a British order of chivalry founded by George I on 18 May 1725. The name derives from the elaborate mediæval ceremony for creating a knight, which involved bathing as one of its elements. The knights so created were known as Knights of the Bath...
MVO
Royal Victorian Order
The Royal Victorian Order is a dynastic order of knighthood and a house order of chivalry recognising distinguished personal service to the order's Sovereign, the reigning monarch of the Commonwealth realms, any members of her family, or any of her viceroys...
(19 November 1868–23 February 1943) was a British
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
Royal Navy
Royal Navy
The Royal Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Founded in the 16th century, it is the oldest service branch and is known as the Senior Service...
officer.
Heaton-Ellis was born in Wyddial
Wyddial
Wyddial is a village and civil parish in Hertfordshire, near Buntingford. It is located at and lies due north of Greenwich on the Prime Meridian....
, Hertfordshire
Hertfordshire
Hertfordshire is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in the East region of England. The county town is Hertford.The county is one of the Home Counties and lies inland, bordered by Greater London , Buckinghamshire , Bedfordshire , Cambridgeshire and...
. He joined HMS Britannia
HMS Prince of Wales (1860)
HMS Prince of Wales was one of six 121-gun screw-propelled first-rate three-decker line-of-battle ships of the Royal Navy. She was launched on 25 January 1860...
as a Naval Cadet in 1882. In 1884 he was promoted Midshipman
Midshipman
A midshipman is an officer cadet, or a commissioned officer of the lowest rank, in the Royal Navy, United States Navy, and many Commonwealth navies. Commonwealth countries which use the rank include Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, India, Pakistan, Singapore, Sri Lanka and Kenya...
and joined the composite screw corvette
Corvette
A corvette is a small, maneuverable, lightly armed warship, originally smaller than a frigate and larger than a coastal patrol craft or fast attack craft , although many recent designs resemble frigates in size and role...
HMS Opal
HMS Opal (1875)
HMS Opal was an Emerald class corvette of the Royal Navy, laid down as HMS Magicienne and built by William Doxford & Sons Ltd, Sunderland and launched on 9 March 1875....
on the Cape of Good Hope and West Africa Station
Cape of Good Hope Station
The Cape of Good Hope Station was one of the geographical divisions into which the British Royal Navy divided its worldwide responsibilities. It was formally the units and establishments responsible to the Commander-in-Chief, Cape of Good Hope....
. He was commissioned Sub-Lieutenant
Sub-Lieutenant
Sub-lieutenant is a military rank. It is normally a junior officer rank.In many navies, a sub-lieutenant is a naval commissioned or subordinate officer, ranking below a lieutenant. In the Royal Navy the rank of sub-lieutenant is equivalent to the rank of lieutenant in the British Army and of...
in 1889 and promoted Lieutenant
Lieutenant
A lieutenant is a junior commissioned officer in many nations' armed forces. Typically, the rank of lieutenant in naval usage, while still a junior officer rank, is senior to the army rank...
in 1892. In 1897 he took command of HMS Hardy
HMS Hardy (1895)
HMS Hardy was a which served with the Royal Navy. She was built by William Doxford & Sons in 1895, launched on 16 December 1895, served in home waters and sold off on 11 July 1911....
, one of the first destroyer
Destroyer
In naval terminology, a destroyer is a fast and maneuverable yet long-endurance warship intended to escort larger vessels in a fleet, convoy or battle group and defend them against smaller, powerful, short-range attackers. Destroyers, originally called torpedo-boat destroyers in 1892, evolved from...
s, at Portsmouth
Portsmouth
Portsmouth is the second largest city in the ceremonial county of Hampshire on the south coast of England. Portsmouth is notable for being the United Kingdom's only island city; it is located mainly on Portsea Island...
. He was promoted Commander
Commander
Commander is a naval rank which is also sometimes used as a military title depending on the individual customs of a given military service. Commander is also used as a rank or title in some organizations outside of the armed forces, particularly in police and law enforcement.-Commander as a naval...
in 1903.
In 1905 he took command of the scout cruiser
Scout cruiser
A scout cruiser was a type of warship of the early 20th Century, which were smaller, faster, more lightly armed and armoured than protected cruisers or light cruisers, but larger than contemporary destroyers...
HMS Sentinel
HMS Sentinel (1904)
HMS Sentinel was one of two Sentinel class scout cruisers which served with the Royal Navy. She was built by Vickers Limited, laid down in June 1903, launched on 19 April 1904 and completed in April 1905 at a cost of about £282,000...
in the Mediterranean. While there he escorted HMY Victoria and Albert
HMY Victoria and Albert III
HMY Victoria and Albert III a Royal Yacht of the Royal Navy of the United Kingdom. The yacht was designed by the Chief Constructor of the Royal Navy Sir William White. She was launched in 1899 but was not ready for service until 1901...
during King Edward VII's
Edward VII of the United Kingdom
Edward VII was King of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions and Emperor of India from 22 January 1901 until his death in 1910...
visit to Malta
Malta
Malta , officially known as the Republic of Malta , is a Southern European country consisting of an archipelago situated in the centre of the Mediterranean, south of Sicily, east of Tunisia and north of Libya, with Gibraltar to the west and Alexandria to the east.Malta covers just over in...
and was appointed Member of the Royal Victorian Order (MVO). In 1907 he was appointed naval attaché in Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
, and later served in the same capacity in Madrid
Madrid
Madrid is the capital and largest city of Spain. The population of the city is roughly 3.3 million and the entire population of the Madrid metropolitan area is calculated to be 6.271 million. It is the third largest city in the European Union, after London and Berlin, and its metropolitan...
, Lisbon
Lisbon
Lisbon is the capital city and largest city of Portugal with a population of 545,245 within its administrative limits on a land area of . The urban area of Lisbon extends beyond the administrative city limits with a population of 3 million on an area of , making it the 9th most populous urban...
and Brussels
Brussels
Brussels , officially the Brussels Region or Brussels-Capital Region , is the capital of Belgium and the de facto capital of the European Union...
until 1911. He was promoted Captain
Captain (naval)
Captain is the name most often given in English-speaking navies to the rank corresponding to command of the largest ships. The NATO rank code is OF-5, equivalent to an army full colonel....
in 1908.
In February 1914 he became Assistant Director of the Naval Intelligence Division
Naval Intelligence Division
The Naval Intelligence Division was the intelligence arm of the British Admiralty before the establishment of a unified Defence Staff in 1965. It dealt with matters concerning British naval plans, with the collection of naval intelligence...
at the Admiralty
Admiralty
The Admiralty was formerly the authority in the Kingdom of England, and later in the United Kingdom, responsible for the command of the Royal Navy...
in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
. In April 1915 he took command of the battlecruiser
Battlecruiser
Battlecruisers were large capital ships built in the first half of the 20th century. They were developed in the first decade of the century as the successor to the armoured cruiser, but their evolution was more closely linked to that of the dreadnought battleship...
HMS Inflexible
HMS Inflexible (1907)
HMS Inflexible was an of the British Royal Navy. She was built before World War I and had an active career during the war. She tried to hunt down the German battlecruiser and the light cruiser in the Mediterranean Sea when war broke out and she and her sister ship sank the German armoured...
. At the Battle of Jutland
Battle of Jutland
The Battle of Jutland was a naval battle between the British Royal Navy's Grand Fleet and the Imperial German Navy's High Seas Fleet during the First World War. The battle was fought on 31 May and 1 June 1916 in the North Sea near Jutland, Denmark. It was the largest naval battle and the only...
in 1916 the 3rd Battlecruiser Squadron flagship
Flagship
A flagship is a vessel used by the commanding officer of a group of naval ships, reflecting the custom of its commander, characteristically a flag officer, flying a distinguishing flag...
, HMS Invincible
HMS Invincible (1907)
HMS Invincible was a battlecruiser of the British Royal Navy, the lead ship of her class of three, and the first battlecruiser to be built by any country in the world. She participated in the Battle of Heligoland Bight in a minor role as she was the oldest and slowest of the British battlecruisers...
, was hit and blew up, but Heaton-Ellis led the squadron forwards past the wreck of the flagship so brazenly that the Germans thought the Inflexible must be the leading ship of the British battle fleet and swerved away. For these services he was appointed Companion of the Order of the Bath (CB).
In November 1916, Heaton-Ellis was appointed chief of staff
Chief of Staff
The title, chief of staff, identifies the leader of a complex organization, institution, or body of persons and it also may identify a Principal Staff Officer , who is the coordinator of the supporting staff or a primary aide to an important individual, such as a president.In general, a chief of...
to Rear-Admiral Sir William Pakenham, commanding the Battlecruiser Squadron, in HMS Lion
HMS Lion
Eighteen ships of the Royal Navy have been named HMS Lion, after the lion, an animal traditionally associated with courage, and also used in several heraldric motifs representing England, Scotland and the British Monarchy...
. In August 1917 he was appointed Naval Liaison Officer in Paris with the rank of Commodore
Commodore (Royal Navy)
Commodore is a rank of the Royal Navy above Captain and below Rear Admiral. It has a NATO ranking code of OF-6. The rank is equivalent to Brigadier in the British Army and Royal Marines and to Air Commodore in the Royal Air Force.-Insignia:...
. He was promoted Rear-Admiral in October 1919 and retired a few months later, although he was promoted Vice-Admiral on the retired list in 1925.
Heaton-Ellis was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in 1919 and Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire (KBE) in the 1920 New Year Honours.
He was president of the Navigators' and Engineer Officers' Union from 1937 and superintendent of the Watts Naval School
Watts Naval School
Watts Naval School was originally the Norfolk County School, a public school set up to serve the educational needs of the 'sons of farmers and artisans'...
in Norfolk
Norfolk
Norfolk is a low-lying county in the East of England. It has borders with Lincolnshire to the west, Cambridgeshire to the west and southwest and Suffolk to the south. Its northern and eastern boundaries are the North Sea coast and to the north-west the county is bordered by The Wash. The county...
from 1939 to 1941.
Both of his sons were killed in the First World War.