Sir William Creswell | |
---|---|
Birth name | William Rooke Creswell |
Born | Gibraltar | 20 July 1852
Died | 20 April 1933 Armadale, Victoria | (aged 80)
Allegiance | United Kingdom |
Service/ | Royal Navy (1865–78) Naval Defence Force of the Colony of South Australia (1885–01) Royal Australian Navy (1901–19) |
Years of service | 1865–1879 1885–1919 |
Rank | Vice Admiral |
Commands held | First Naval Member Australian Commonwealth Naval Board (1904–19) Naval Commandant Queensland (1900–04) HMCS Protector (1900–01) Naval Commandant South Australia (1893–00) HMS Lion (1878) |
Battles/wars | Boxer Rebellion First World War |
Awards | Knight Commander of the Order of St Michael and St George Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire Second Class of the Order of the Rising Sun (Japan) |
Vice Admiral Sir William Rooke Creswell, KCMG, KBE (20 July 1852 – 20 April 1933) was an Australian naval officer, commonly considered to be the 'father' of the Royal Australian Navy.
Creswell was born in Gibraltar, son of Edmund Creswell (head of the postal service at Gibraltar and for the Mediterranean), and Margaret Mary Ward, née Fraser. He was educated at Gibraltar and Eastman's Royal Naval Academy, Southsea.[1]
Creswell's brother Edmund (1849–1931) played for the Royal Engineers in the first FA Cup Final in 1872.[2] Another brother, Frederic (1866–1948) was a Labour Party politician in South Africa, who was Minister of Defence from 1924 to 1933.[3]
Considered the father of the RAN, Creswell retired in 1919 and took up farming in Victoria; in the same year he was awarded a second knighthood as a Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire (KBE). On 8 March 1920 he was awarded the Gold and Silver Star of the Order of the Rising Sun (Second class of the order) by Emperor Taishō of the Empire of Japan.[8] He was promoted to Vice Admiral in 1922. He died on 20 April 1933 and was survived by his wife Adelaide Elizabeth née Stow (daughter of Justice Randolph Stow) two sons and a daughter.[1]
Two sons were killed during the First World War. Captain Randolph William Creswell (1890–1917) served in the 3rd Anzac Camel Battalion, AIF and was killed in action on 6 November 1917 at Tel el Khuweifle, Palestine.[9][10] He is buried at Beersheba War Cemetery.[11] His twin brother, Lieutenant Edmund Lindsay Creswell was wounded at Bullecourt, but survived the war.[10] Lieutenant Colin Fraser Creswell (1894–1917) was lost in the sinking of submarine E47 off the Dutch coast on 20 August 1917.[12][13][14] His oldest daughter, Margaret, took her own life in 1913 at the age of 21.[15]
In 1965, his memoir "Close To The Wind; The early memoirs (1866-1879) of Admiral Sir William Creswell" was published posthumously, his surviving daughter, Noël Vigne, having found the manuscript.
Creswell has been honoured with the naming of the naval base, HMAS Creswell, the site of the Royal Australian Naval College at Jervis Bay.[16]