Difference between revisions of "Alfred Ernle Montacute Chatfield, First Baron Chatfield"

Revision as of 06:35, 23 January 2011

Admiral of the Fleet THE RIGHT HONOURABLE Alfred Ernle Montacute Chatfield, First Baron Chatfield, P.C., G.C.B., O.M. (27 September, 1873 – 15 November, 1967) was an officer of the Royal Navy during the First World War. He acted as Flag Captain to David Beatty, First Earl Beatty for six years before service at the Admiralty and fleet command. He served as First Sea Lord and Chief of the Naval Staff from 1933 to 1938 and started the critical buildup of the Navy as the military and naval threat from Germany emerged.

Early Life & Career

He was promoted to the rank of Captain on 30 June, 1909.^[1]

Great War

In the King's Birthday Honours of 3 June, 1916, Chatfield was appointed a Companion of the Most Honourable Order of the Bath (C.B.).^[2]

Post-War

On 26 January, 1920 he was appointed a Naval Aide-de-Camp to King George V.^[3]

Retirement

After leaving the Admiralty, Chatfield served as chairman of the expert committee on Indian defence (1938–9), and while still in India received an invitation from the prime minister, Neville Chamberlain, to join the cabinet as minister for co-ordination of defence, in succession to T. W. H. Inskip. He started this work in Whitehall in February 1939 at a time when it was certain that war with a rearmed Germany could not be long delayed. He was sworn of the privy council on taking up the appointment, having been admitted to the Order of Merit in the previous month. But the essential pragmatism of politics was entirely foreign to one who had been brought up since youth to the decision-taking character of naval life, and he was constantly irked by his lack of power to press ahead in his own way with the rapid build-up, which war demanded, of the navy, army, and air force. As he himself wrote in his memoirs, when he found himself after the declaration of war a member of the war cabinet, he was little more than ‘a fifth wheel to the coach’ (Chatfield, The Navy and Defence), but his malaise in political life went deeper than that. He was apt to be intolerant of politicians, perhaps not understanding that they, like him, also had their particular spheres of responsibility for which they were answerable to parliament. His disillusionment with the political side of service life was also exacerbated by the fact that, although he was an admiral of the fleet, he now had no say in the chiefs of staff committee which, as first sea lord, he had grown used to dominate. He was asked to resign in March 1940 and his office was abolished. He then turned his undoubted abilities to less irksome occupations, of which the most important was the chairmanship of the committee on evacuation of casualties in London region hospitals.

Chatfield was one of the most able and dedicated naval officers of his generation, a man of great intellect, force of character, and complete integrity. In stature he was small, with little of the traditional look of an admiral about him, and he was austere with little sense of humour. He reached the top of his profession, deservedly, through hard work, an intense devotion to duty, and an unbending resolution to carry into effect the policies he considered necessary to transform the hidebound Grand Fleet of 1914–18 into the flexible instrument so ably used by the fleet commanders of 1939–45, a transformation as successful as it was necessary. He received many decorations and honours in his life, both British and foreign, which included honorary degrees from both Oxford and Cambridge universities.

Chatfield died at his home, the Small House, Farnham Common, on 15 November 1967 and was succeeded in the barony by his son, Ernle David Lewis (b. 1917).

Wealth at death; £20,988: probate, 11 April. 1968.

Footnotes

Bibliography