Hugh Childers - First Lord of The Admiralty

First Lord of The Admiralty

With the election of Gladstone's government in December 1868 he rose to greater prominence, serving as First Lord of the Admiralty. Childers "had a reputation for being hardworking, but inept, autocratic and notoriously overbearing in his dealing with colleagues." He "initiated a determined programme of cost and manpower reductions, fully backed by the Prime Minister, Gladstone described him as 'a man likely to scan with a rigid eye the civil expenses of the Naval Service'. He got the naval estimates just below the psychologically important figure of £10,000,000. Childers strengthened his own position as First Lord by reducing the role of the Board of Admiralty to a purely formal one, making meetings rare and short and confining the Naval Lords rigidly to the administrative functions... Initially Childers had the support of the influential Controller of the Navy, Vice-Admiral Sir Spencer Robinson." "His re-organisation of the Admiralty was unpopular and poorly done."

Childers was responsible for the construction of HMS Captain in defiance of the advice of his professional advisers, the Controller (Robinson) and the Chief Constructor (Edward James Reed). Captain was commissioned in April 1870, and sank on the night of 6/7 September 1870. She was, as predicted by Robison and Reed, insufficiently stable. "Shortly before Captain sank, Childers had moved his son, Midshipman Leonard Childers from Reed's designed HMS Monarch onto Captain; Leonard did not survive." Childers "faced strong criticism following the Court Martial on the loss of Captain, and attempted to clear his name with a 359 page memorandum, a move described as "dubious public ethics". Vice Admiral Sir Robert Spencer Robinson wrote 'His endeavors were directed to throw the blame which might be supposed to attach to himself on those who had throughout expressed their disapproval of such methods of construction'." Childers unfairly blamed Robinson for the loss of the Captain, and as a result of this Robinson was replaced as Third Lord and Controller of the navy in February 1871. "Following the loss of his son and the recriminations that followed, Childers resigned through ill health as First Lord in March 1871."