Sir Herbert Richmond | |
|---|---|
 Portrait by Wilfrid de Glehn | |
| Master of Downing College, Cambridge | |
| In office 1934–1946 | |
| Preceded by | Albert Seward |
| Succeeded by | Lionel Whitby |
| Personal details | |
| Born | 15 September 1871 Beavor Lodge, Hammersmith, England |
| Died | 15 December 1946 (aged 75) Cambridge, Cambridgeshire, England |
| Military service | |
| Allegiance | United Kingdom |
| Branch/service | Royal Navy |
| Years of service | 1885–1931 |
| Rank | Admiral |
| Commands | Imperial Defence College East Indies Squadron Royal Naval College, Greenwich East Indies Station HMS Erin HMS Conqueror HMS Commonwealth HMS Vindictive HMS Furious HMS Dreadnought |
| Battles/wars | First World War |
| Awards | Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath |
Admiral Sir Herbert William Richmond, KCB, FBA (15 September 1871 – 15 December 1946) was a prominent Royal Navy officer, described as "perhaps the most brilliant naval officer of his generation."[1] He was also a top naval historian, known as the "British Mahan",[2] the leader of the British Royal Navy's intellectual revolution that stressed continuing education especially in naval history as essential to the formation of naval strategy. After serving as a "gadfly" to the British Admiralty, his constructive criticisms causing him to be "denied the role in the formation of policy and the reformations of naval education which his talents warranted",[2] he served as Vere Harmsworth Professor of Imperial and Naval History at Cambridge University from 1934 to 1936, and Master of Downing College, Cambridge from 1934 to 1946.
Richmond was the second son of artist Sir William Blake Richmond, son of the portrait painter George Richmond.[3] In July 1907 he married Florence Elsa, elder daughter of the writer Florence Bell and Sir Thomas Hugh Bell. She was half-sister of the diplomat Gertrude Bell.
Following his forced retirement from the Royal Navy in 1931,[6][7] the University of Cambridge appointed him Vere Harmsworth Professor of Imperial and Naval History, an academic chair he held from 1934 to 1936.[6] In 1934 he was also elected master of Downing College, Cambridge, a post he held until his death in 1946. He delivered the Ford Lectures in English History at Oxford University in 1943 (for the academic year 1943/4). He never published a formal treatise on naval strategy.
In March 1942 Richmond published an article in The Fortnightly Review which charged that the British defeat in the Battle of Singapore in February 1942 was due to "the folly of not providing adequately for the command of the sea in a two-ocean war".[8] In his last book Statesmen and Sea Power (1946), he charged that the defeat was sealed by "the illusion that a Two-Hemisphere Empire can be defended by a One-Hemisphere Navy".[9]
On 28–29 September 1992 the Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island gathered naval experts from around the world to examine the works of Richmond and Sir Julian Corbett in the post-Cold War context, resulting in the book Mahan is not Enough (1993),[10] which includes the article "Process: The Realities of Formulating Modern Naval Strategy" by David Alan Rosenberg, showing the importance of leveraging and integrating the expertise of naval historians with naval officers for a full understanding of naval strategy.[11]
