Allegiance United Kingdom Battles and wars Crimean War Name Edmund 1st | Battles/wars Crimean War Rank Admiral Service/branch Royal Navy | |
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Commands held HMS Rinaldo
HMS Blonde
HMS Madagascar
Mediterranean Fleet Died November 23, 1858, Arundel Castle, Arundel, United Kingdom Children Anne Theresa Bickerton Lyons Awards Order of the Bath, Royal Guelphic Order People also search for Anne Theresa Bickerton Lyons, William d'Aubigny, 1st Earl of Arundel, Franz Roubaud | ||
Admiral Edmund Lyons, 1st Baron Lyons (21 November 1790 – 23 November 1858) was an eminent British Admiral of the Royal Navy and diplomat. He was responsible for encouraging the Crimean War, during which he was Commander-in-Chief of the Mediterranean Fleet, and for the securing the subsequent allied victory in the conflict, through his efforts at the Siege of Sevastopol (1854–1855) with both the Navy and the British Army.
Contents
- Family
- Naval and Diplomatic Service
- First Fame Lyons Destroys Fort Marrack
- Marriage and Issue
- Early Mediterranean Service
- Diplomat at Athens
- Return to the Navy Second in Command of Mediterranean Fleet
- Sir James Graham
- Lord Raglan and the Army
- Later Crimean War
- Late Life
- Honours
- References
Lyons was famous for his unorthodox manner. He maintained secret private correspondences with the High Commands of both Royal Navy and British Army, such as Sir James Graham, First Lord of the Admiralty, and Fitzroy Somerset, 1st Baron Raglan, of the Army, and with the British Government, from whom he received secret orders to which his immediate superiors were not privy. Both when so encouraged by the High Command and when left to his own initiative, he openly defied his immediate superiors, whose authority over him he refused to acknowledge, sometimes to resplendent success, such as his destruction of Fort Marrack on 30 July 1811 – one of the most famous Naval actions after the French Revolution, which established Lyons a fame that endured for decades – and sometimes to costly failure, such as his diversionary attack on Sevastopol on 17 October 1853.
Lyons's extraordinary temerity, mendacity, ambition, and charisma, for which his white-blonde hair and pale complexion became a byword, made him popular with the High Command of the Navy and Army and with the British aristocracy: his friendship with Lord Raglan, of the British Army, for instance, and his support of both Army and Navy ensured allied victory in the Crimean War. He received numerous honours from various nations and was showered with honours by the British Royal Family. Distinguished by his ‘bravery, spirit, and commitment’, he was also loved by the officers and rank-and-file whom he commanded, who supported him in actions that defied or lacked the approval of his immediate superiors, and with whom he shared his glories: he has been described as ‘as lavish with his praise of others as he was anxious to be praised by his superiors [sc. the High Command].
Predictably, Lyons was hated by his immediate superiors, whose authority over him he refused to acknowledge, whose orders he defied, and whom he continually bypassed in correspondence, communicating directly with the High Commands, the Government, and the aristocracy, with the connivance of each. He was described by the Foreign Secretary, Lord Clarendon, whom he had disobeyed, as ‘irritable and one of the vainest men I ever knew’. Encouraged by the First Lord of the Admiralty, Sir James Graham, but on his own initiative, Lyons went as far to criticize the policies of his commanding officer, Vice-Admiral James Dundas, in several direct communications addressed to the British public in The Times newspaper, as a consequence of which he subsequently usurped Dundas, who was dismissed.
In addition to his military commands, in which he wielded considerable diplomatic influence, Lyons, as a consequence of his linguistic ability and favour with foreign aristocrats, was appointed to various diplomatic posts, including ambassadorial positions in Sweden, Switzerland and to the newly established court of King Otto of Greece.
He was the father of Richard Lyons, 1st Viscount Lyons, the diplomat who solved the Trent Affair and established the Lyons School of Diplomacy, the father of Augusta Mary Minna Catherine Lyons, who married Henry Granville Fitzalan-Howard, 14th Duke of Norfolk, the uncle of Sir Algernon McLennan Lyons, who became the Admiral of the Fleet, the uncle of Richard Lyons Pearson, Assistant Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, and the great-grandfather of Philip Kerr, 11th Marquess of Lothian, founder of the Round Table Journal.
There is a life-size statue of him in St Paul’s Cathedral, which remains in place. The Lyons River in Australia is named after him.
Family
Edmund Lyons was born at Whitehayes House, Burton, near Christchurch, 29 November 1790. He was the fourth son of Captain John Lyons, an owner of extensive sugar plantations in Antigua, whose British residence was at St. Austin's, Lymington, Hampshire, and Catherine (née Walrond), daughter of Maine Swete Walrond, 5th Marquis de Vallado. His brothers included Vice-Admiral John Lyons (1787–1872) who served in the Egyptian fleet with the Royal Navy and was onboard HMS Victory at the Battle of Trafalgar; Maine Walrond Lyons, (1798–1827), a Lieutenant in the Navy who was killed at Battle of Navarino; and Humphrey Lyons, (1802–1873), a Lieutenant-General in the Indian (Bombay) Army.
His nephews included Sir Algernon McLennan Lyons, Admiral of the Fleet (1833–1908), who served under him during the Crimean War, and Richard Lyons Pearson, Assistant Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police.
His godparents were Sir Richard Hussey Bickerton and Lady Bickerton.
Naval and Diplomatic Service
Lyons first went to sea on board HMS Terrible in 1798, when he was eight years old. He then returned to England to attend Hyde Abbey School near Winchester, which he attended until 1803, when he joined the Royal Navy and the crew of the frigate HMS Active, with which he remained for four years. He served at the passage of the Dardanelles, under Sir John Duckworth, in February 1807.
He was posted to the West Indies later in 1807 and commissioned as a Lieutenant in 1809, as which he participated in the capture of Banda Neira, for which he was mentioned for gallantry.
He then served as a flag-lieutenant, to Rear-Admiral Drury, aboard HMS Minden (74 Guns). In 1810, he served in the 18-gun sloop HMS Barracouta at the capture of Banda Neira in New Guinea from the Dutch.
First Fame: Lyons Destroys Fort Marrack
In 1811, a planned attack by the whole Fleet on the heavily defended port of Fort Marrack, in the Sunda Strait, Batavia, was ordered to be postponed after the Navy received intelligence that extensive Dutch reinforcements had arrived. Lyons, acting on his own initiative, decided to attack the fort anyway and destroyed it, with its 180-strong garrison and 54 guns, with only 34 men.
On 25 July, Lyons was dispatched to land Dutch prisoners on the island. On his return journey, on 30 July, acting on his own initiative, he decided to launch a surprise midnight attack on the Dutch fort with the 34 men who accompanied him. Lyons stormed the Dutch battery, captured it, dispersed the Dutch garrison of 180 men and two boat crews and gunned down the Dutch reinforcements as they arrived, before dismantling the fort, destroying its 54 guns with dynamite (so that they could not be used on the British Fleet), and returning to his ship.
This action made Lyons famous within the Royal Navy and was praised as ‘the most outstanding example of individual bravery in the wars which followed the French Revolution’ for decades after it occurred. Subsequent to it, Lyons was mentioned in dispatches and, despite the fact that he had acted without orders, proposed for early promotion to the rank of Commander, which he received on 21 March 1812.
Marriage and Issue
After his attack on Marrack, Lyons’s health deteriorated and he returned to Britain. In 1814, he was promoted to Captain and commanded the sloop HMS Rinaldo in the fleet that escorted the French King Louis XVIII and other allied sovereigns from England to France. On 18 July 1814, at Southwick, Hampshire, he married Augusta Louisa (1792–1852), daughter of Captain Josias Rogers of the Navy. He was unemployed until 1828, whilst he and his wife had two sons and two daughters:
- Anne Theresa Bickerton Lyons (1815–1894), who married Philip Hartmann Veit von Würtzburg, Baron von Würtzburg, in Bavaria, in 1839.
- Richard Lyons, 1st Viscount Lyons (1817–1887). Eminent diplomat who served during the American Civil War and solved the Trent affair and founded the Lyons School of Diplomacy. He was a favourite of Queen Victoria who stated that she would allow him to represent her ‘at any court in the world’. Richard was granted the higher noble titles of Viscount (1881) and Earl (1887), but he died, unmarried and without issue, before he had formally received the latter.
- Edmund Moubray Lyons (1819–1855). Captain in the Royal Navy. He was killed in the Crimean War and died without issue.
- Augusta Mary Minna Catherine Lyons (1821–1886), who married, in, 1839, Henry Granville Fitzalan-Howard, 14th Duke of Norfolk. Her grandson was Philip Kerr, 11th Marquess of Lothian.
Early Mediterranean Service
Lieutenant Maine Walrond Lyons, one of Edmund's younger Brothers, was killed at the Battle of Navarino in 1827. The Duke of Clarence, the heir presumptive to the British throne, heard of the loss and appointed Edmund, in 1828, to command the 46-gun frigate HMS Blonde during the final stages of the Greek War of Independence. When Lyons arrived in Malta on 20 May 1828, Sir Richard Hussey Bickerton and Admiral Sausages described him, in letters to the Fleet Commander, as 'a man of intelligence and great ability' who was 'blessed' with military competence.
Edmund and his wife rented the most expensive house in Valletta, where they homeschooled their four children in grammar, language style, and Enlightenment philosophy.
On HMS Blonde, Edmund was involved in the capture of Kastro Morea in the Peloponnese, for which he was knighted in both France and Greece. The following year, Lyons took the Blonde around the Black Sea to become the first British warship to visit Sevastopol, the Caucasus, and Odessa: 25 years later, Lyons was the only senior officer involved in the Crimean War to have prior knowledge of the Black Sea.
In 1831 Lyons was appointed to command of the frigate HMS Madagascar: he brought the Madagascar home to England but sailed again in her for the Mediterranean in February 1832.
Diplomat at Athens
In August 1832, Lyons transported the newly chosen King Otto of Greece from Brindisi to Nauplia, and then, in 1833, from Trieste to Athens.
As a consequence of his rapport with King Otto of Greece, Lyons left the Navy in January 1835, received another knighthood in the Royal Guelphic Order, and was appointed by Lord Palmerston as a diplomat as the British and plenipotentiary at Athens, where he remained for almost fifteen years.
On 29 July 1840 he was created baronet and in July 1844 he was made a Knight Grand Cross in the Civil Division of the Order of the Bath.
In 1849 he was appointed Minister Plenipotentiary to the Confederated States of the Swiss Cantons and, although he was not in present service with the Navy, he was promoted to Rear-Admiral in the Navy on 14 January 1850. In 1851 he was appointed Minister at Stockholm, where his wife died.
Return to the Navy: Second in Command of Mediterranean Fleet
In November 1853, with the advocacy of Sir James Graham, Lyons returned to active service in the Royal Navy and was appointed second in command of the British Mediterranean Fleet. At the same time, he was granted a pension of £900 per annum for his years of diplomatic service. Lyons left England for the Dardanelles, as Rear-Admiral of the White, on board the steam frigate HMS Terrible on 5 November 1853. He then took command of his flagship, the brand new screw steam ship-of-the-line HMS Agamemnon (1852) (91 guns).
Lyons was preferred as a Mediterranean Commander as a consequence of his linguistic ability, his experience as a diplomat, and his charismatic leadership, the latter of which was conspicuously lacked by the Commander-in-Chief, Vice-Admiral Sir James Dundas.
Sir James Graham
Lyons maintained a secret private correspondence with the First Lord of the Admiralty, Sir James Graham, whose plans for an amphibious assault on Sevastopol Lyons advocated at the Allied Counsels of War between July and August 1854, in defiance of the policy his immediate superior, Vice-Admiral Dundas.
Lyons maintained this private correspondence, with the head of the Royal Navy, in addition to direct private correspondences with various Cabinet ministers, without the permission of his immediate superiors. Lyons also undertook to communicate with the British public directly, again in defiance of his Vice-Admiral, by publishing memos in The Times newspaper, without permission, via reporters such as John Delane, Austen Henry Layard, and William Howard Russell: in these he criticised the policies of his Admiral, Dundas.
Dundas disliked Lyons’s wilful independence and Lyons’s refusal to acknowledge the authority of any but the highest officers. However, Dundas’s superiors, the heads of the Navy, to whom alone Lyons considered himself answerable, preferred Lyons, whom they considered to be the more competent and the more charismatic, and encouraged his independence, engaging in an extensive private correspondence with him and issuing multiple secret orders to him. Lyons was privately entrusted with plans, such as those for the assault on Sevastopol, by the First Lord of the Admiralty, Sir James Graham, to which officers between Graham and Lyons in rank, such as Dundas, were not privy.
Lyons’s white-blonde hair became identified with his singular maverick temerity. His hair was similar to the hair of Nelson, whom Lyons idolized. However, Lyons did not possess the strategic intelligence of Nelson and typically attained his victories, such as the destruction of Fort Marrack (see above) and the attack on Sevastopol (see below), by extraordinary spontaneous temerity and aggression, rather than by meticulous formal planning. Lyons disliked paperwork: when Admiral Dundas ordered him to organize transports for the invasion of the Crimea, Lyons immediately employed a subordinate, his flag captain William Mends, to do it for him.
Lord Raglan and the Army
Furthermore, Lyons’s charisma made him a favourite of the Army General Lord Raglan, with whom he maintained another private correspondence. The friendship between Lyons and Raglan was productive of an inter-service rapport during the Crimean War and Lyons served as an intermediary between the Navy and the Army. When Lyons captured Balaklava, he advised Raglan to adopt it as the base for the British Army: Raglan did so. However, this was a poor decision because it compelled the army to suffer the Crimean winter.
Although he was a Naval Commander, Lyons led a force during the diversionary attack on Sevastopol on 17 October 1854. Idiosyncratically, Lyons ignored Admiral Dundas’s orders to remain disengaged and proceeded to attack on his own initiative: on this occasion, however, Lyons’s attack was unsuccessful and the ships were damaged and heavy casualties sustained. However, although the attack failed, Lyons was praised for his bravery by the High Command. Lyons conceded that he was responsible for the failure, but the High Command blamed Dundas for the failure, dismissed Dundas, and, in January 1855, made Lyons Commander-in-Chief.
Lyons continued to work productively with Raglan to improve supply arrangements in the Bosphorus and at Balaklava. Lyons secured another diplomatic triumph when he secured, in May 1855, French consent to capture of Kerch and occupation of the Sea of Azov: this operation destroyed the logistic support of the Russian army in the Crimea and enabled the allied victory.
Later Crimean War
In June 1855, Lyons lost both his own son, Captain Edmund Lyons RN (1819–1855), who had been severely wounded in a night attack on Sevastopol, and his close friend and colleague Lord Raglan.
After the fall of Sevastopol, Lyons led a successful expedition to capture Kinburn on 17 October 1855, which opened up the Bug and Dnieper rivers for allied operations. This was the first military action to involve the use of armoured warships.
In July 1855, Lyons, who had already received the honour of Knight Grand Cross of the Civil Division of the Order of the Bath, received the honour of Knight Grand Cross of the Military Division of the same order. He is one of few persons to have attained the rank of Knight Grand Cross in both divisions of the Order.
In January 1856, Lyons attended the allied Council of War at Paris and advocated increased aggression. After the Treaty of Paris, he relinquished his post of Commander in Chief of the Royal Navy in the Mediterranean.
Lyons’s contribution to the Crimean War was imperative to the allied success. He was largely responsible, at the allied council of war, for the decision to attempt the operation. He transported the British Army to the Crimea and subsequently ensured its supplies and supported it militarily on land, where he led assaults, including the Kerch operation. His friendship with Lord Raglan enabled the coordination of the British Army and Navy, the officers of both of which were endeared to his charisma.
Late Life
Already a baronet, he was created a Baron, Baron Lyons of Christchurch, and raised to the peerage on 23 June 1856. He entered the House of Lords between Admiral George Byron, 7th Baron Byron and Thomas Foley, 4th Baron Foley.
He was promoted to Vice-Admiral on 19 March 1857 and held the temporary rank of Admiral from December 1857.
He returned to Britain in 1858 before escorting Queen Victoria to Cherbourg in August 1858.
Lyons died at Arundel Castle, the seat of his son-in-law, Henry Granville Fitzalan-Howard, 14th Duke of Norfolk, on 23 November 1858. He is interred in the vault beneath the Fitzalan Chapel at Arundel Castle. There is a life size statue of him, by Matthew Noble, in St Paul’s Cathedral, which remains in place. The Lyons River in Australia is named after him.
Honours
Lyons received the following honours: