William Milbourne James

Admiral SIR William Milbourne James, G.C.B., Royal Navy (22 December, 1881 – 17 August, 1973) was an officer of the Royal Navy.

Early Life & Career

James was born 22 December 1881 near Farnborough, the younger son and second of the four children of Major William Christopher James, Scots Greys, and his wife, Effie, daughter of the painter Sir John Everett Millais, of Kensington. W. C. James was the only son of Lord Justice Sir William Milbourne James. The most notable portrait of William James was done when he was four, sitting for his maternal grandfather; Millais' painting found its way, via the Illustrated London News, to Pears Soap, which used it as its famous "Bubbles" advertisement. This nickname remained with James for life.

After Trinity College, Glenalmond, he entered the Britannia at Dartmouth in 1895. His progress in the service was smooth and by 1913 he was a Commander and the executive officer of the new battle cruiser Queen Mary, whose captain was the formidable (Sir) W. R. ("Blinker") Hall. Although best known for their work at naval intelligence, the years of these two officers aboard the Queen Mary were also a most creative period, preparing the crew for war and making the vessel the first in the Royal Navy to possess a chapel, cinematograph, bookstall, and laundry. In March 1916 James became flag commander to Vice-Admiral (Sir) F. C. D. Sturdee on the Benbow, thereby missing the fate of the Queen Mary's crew at Jutland two months later. By the following year he had been promoted Captain and appointed to the Naval Intelligence Division, at the request of Hall, who was by then its director. Despite his preference for a post afloat, James clearly enjoyed his work at the NID, whose vital cryptographic service he later described in his book The Eyes of the Navy: A Biographical Study of Sir R. Hall (1955). It was during the war that James began his writings, pseudonymously, as a naval poet.

Interbellum Years

James's career in the inter-war years confirmed his early potential as a staff officer. After a tour on the China station he was appointed deputy director of the Royal Naval Staff College at Greenwich in 1923 and its director in 1925. During that period he expanded his staff lectures upon the naval side of the war of American independence into the book The British Navy in Adversity (1926), which was for many years the standard work. Another brief spell abroad, in the Mediterranean, was followed in 1928 by his appointment as Naval Assistant to the First Sea Lord and his promotion to Rear-Admiral. In late 1928 he was chief of staff to the Atlantic Fleet and, from 1930, to the Mediterranean Fleet, both under A. E. M. (later Lord) Chatfield.

In 1932 the plum job of commander of the Battle Cruiser Squadron came James's way, and he was promoted Vice-Admiral in 1933. From 1935 to 1938 he was Deputy Chief of the Naval Staff and centrally involved in Admiralty policy during the critical "appeasement" years, being made a full Admiral in 1938. After a brief rest, he occupied the important post of Commander-in-Chief, Portsmouth, between 1939 and 1942, being made a freeman of that city upon his retirement. Appropriately enough, he succeeded Roger Keyes as MP (Unionist) for Portsmouth North in 1943 upon the latter's elevation to the peerage, which he combined with his new post as Chief of Naval Information.

James was not a natural Commons man, although showing interest in educational as well as naval issues there, and he willingly retired before the 1945 election. He was now, moreover, devoting much more time to talks and writing. Blue Water and Green Fields, pieces on World War I, was published in 1939, and a biography Admiral Sir William Fisher in 1943. His job as chief of naval information involved constant writing, part of which formed the basis for The British Navies in the Second World War, published in 1946—the same year as The Portsmouth Letters. Biographies of Nelson (1948), St. Vincent (1950), and Admiral Sir Henry Oliver (1956) were published in later years, as was a study of the unhappy relationship between John Ruskin and James's maternal grandmother, Effie Gray. His two most important books in these years were his autobiography, The Sky Was Always Blue (1951), and his book upon Hall. He contributed several notices to this Dictionary. Appointed Lees-Knowles lecturer at Cambridge (1947) and naval editor of Chambers Encyclopedia, the ever-lively James was a source of much information to younger naval historians, as well as being active in youth education and rural matters.

James was appointed C.B. (1919), K.C.B. (1936), and G.C.B. (1944). In 1915 he married Dorothy ("Robin") (died 1971), the youngest daughter of (Admiral Sir) Alexander Duff; they had one son and one daughter, who died when she was nineteen. James's son predeceased him. He himself died 17 August, 1973 at Hindhead, Surrey.

Bibliography

• Beesly, Patrick (1982). Room 40: British Naval Intelligence 1914–1918. London: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-281468-0.
• James, Admiral Sir William (1956). The Eyes of the Navy: A Biographical Study of Admiral Sir Reginald Hall. London: Methuen & Co..