The Commander-in-Chief, English Channel or formally Commander-in-Chief, of His Majesty's Ships in the Channel was a senior commander of the
Royal Navy. The Spithead Station[1] was a name given to the units, establishments, and staff operating under the post from 1709 to 1746. Following Admiral
Lord Anson new appointment as Commander-in-Chief, English Channel this office was amalgamated with the office of
Commander-in-Chief, Portsmouth.
History
Initially the English Navy had organized its fleet into sub-commands namely
squadrons from at least 1205 [2] and certainly during the 16th century. A
channel squadron was operating out of
Portsmouth from around 1512. By 1560 The Navy Royal had three functioning squadrons one in the
Channel, and the
Irish Sea and another in the
North Sea.[3] From 1509 until 1649 Vice-Admirals commanding particular fleets were styled so as to denote he was junior to the
Lord Admiral of England these flag officers were formally appointed by the crown.[4] From 1709 the Channel Squadron was coordinated out of
Spithead,
Hampshire,
England under the command of
Sir John Norris.[5] In 1715 Norris was reassigned to command the
British Baltic Fleet and sent to the
Baltic Sea to support a coalition of naval forces from
Russia,
Denmark and
Hanover taking in the
Great Northern War.[6] In 1729 Admiral Norris returned to the Spithead Station for a second tenure as
CINC. In March 1744 he resigned his post over the
Admiralty's attempts to override his authority in setting strategy in response to renewed hostilities against France.[7] Following Admiral Norris's resignation the station was then commanded by
Sir John Balchen until 1746 when the Admiralty issued orders to centralize all existing naval commands in the English Channel including Spithead and those at the
Downs,
Narrow Seas ,
Portsmouth , and
Plymouth, to be under the control of Admiral
Lord Anson then the
Commander-in-Chief, Western Squadron.[8] He then assumed the post of Commander-in-Chief, English Channel,[9] The Spithead Station was then merged with
Portsmouth Station.
^Corbett, Julian Stafford (1917).
"The Navy of Elizabeth". Drake and the Tudor navy, with a history of the rise of England as a maritime power. London, England: London : Longmans, Green. p. 347.
^Rodger, N.A.M. (1997). "Social History of Officers 1509-1603". The safeguard of the sea : a naval history of Britain. Vol 1., 660-1649. London, England: Penguin. p. 298.
ISBN9780140297249.
^Heathcote, T.A. (2002). The British Admirals of the Fleet : 1734-1995 : a biographical dictionary (1. publ. in Great Britain. ed.). Barnsley: Cooper. p. 196.
ISBN0850528356.
^"Norris, John (1660?-1749) (DNB00)". wikisource.org. Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900, Volume 41. pp.134-135. Retrieved 14 June 2018.
^Archives, The National.
"Commission and Warrant Book". discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk. National Archives UK, ADM 6/16 4 January 1742-18 September 1745. Retrieved 14 June 2018.
Sources
Archives, The National. "Commission and Warrant Book". discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk. National Archives UK, ADM 6/16 4 January 1742 – 18 September 1745.
Baumber, Michael (1989). General-at-sea : Robert Blake and the seventeenth-century revolution in naval warfare (1. publ. ed.). London: J. Murray.
ISBN9780719547065.
Beatson, Robert (1804). Naval and Military Memoirs of Great Britain, from 1727 to 1783. London, England: Longman, Hurst, Rees and Orme.
Corbett, Julian Stafford (1917). "The Navy of Elizabeth". Drake and the Tudor navy, with a history of the rise of England as a maritime power. London, England: London : Longmans, Green.
Harrison, Simon. "Commander-in-Chief at English Channel". threedecks.org. S. Harrison 2010-2018.
Heathcote, T.A. (2002). The British Admirals of the Fleet : 1734-1995 : a biographical dictionary (1. publ. in Great Britain. ed.). Barnsley: Cooper.
ISBN0850528356.
Knighton, edited by C.S.; Loades, David (2011). The Navy of Edward VI and Mary I. Farnham, Surrey: Ashgate for the Navy Records Society.
ISBN9781409418474.
Naughton, John Knox (1904). Dictionary of National Biography: Howard, Edward (1477?-1513) (Vol 28 ed.). Smith, Elder & Co.
"NORRIS, Sir John (c.1671-1749), of Benenden, Kent, and St. Paul's, Covent Garden, London | History of Parliament Online". www.historyofparliamentonline.org. The History of Parliament Trust 1964-2017.
Palmer, Michael A. (2005). Command at Sea: Naval Command and Control Since the Sixteenth Century. Harvard, Mass, USA: Harvard University Press.
ISBN9780674016811.
Runyan, Timothy J. (1987). Ships, Seafaring, and Society: Essays in Maritime History. Detroit, Michigan, USA: Wayne State University Press.
ISBN0814319912.
Stewart, William (2009). Admirals of the World: A Biographical Dictionary, 1500 to the Present. McFarland.
ISBN9780786438099.