Admiral Sir Reginald Godfrey Otway Tupper, (16 October 1859 – 5 March 1945) was a

Royal Navy The Royal Navy (RN) is the United Kingdom's naval warfare force. Although warships were used by Kingdom of England, English and Kingdom of Scotland, Scottish kings from the early medieval period, the first major maritime engagements were foug ...

officer active during the late Victorian period and the

First World War World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fig ...

Early life and career

Reginald Tupper was born on 16 October 1859, the son of C. W. Tupper, an officer in the

Royal Fusiliers The Royal Fusiliers (City of London Regiment) was a line infantry regiment of the British Army in continuous existence for 283 years. It was known as the 7th Regiment of Foot until the Childers Reforms of 1881. The regiment served in many wars ...

. His mother was Letitia Frances Wheeler-Cuffe, the daughter of Sir Jonah Denny-Wheeler-Cuffe, an Irish baronet. He joined the

at the age of 14 in 1873, and saw active service during the 1890 Witu Expedition in East Africa, where he was

mentioned in despatches To be mentioned in dispatches (or despatches, MiD) describes a member of the armed forces whose name appears in an official report written by a superior officer and sent to the high command, in which their gallant or meritorious action in the face ...

. In 1898 he was appointed as Deputy Commissioner for the Western Pacific and a member of the

Naval Intelligence Department The Naval Intelligence Department (NID) was the intelligence arm of the British Admiralty from 1887 until 1912 when most of its subsidiary divisions were absorbed during the creation of the Admiralty War Staff department that included a new Nava ...

, and in 1901 promoted to captain and posted to the Admiralty as Assistant

Director of Naval Ordnance The Naval Ordnance Department, also known as the Department of the Director of Naval Ordnance, was a former department of the Admiralty responsible for the procurement of naval ordnance of the Royal Navy. The department was managed by a Director, ...

.Tupper, Admiral Sir Reginald Godfrey Otway
in ''Who Was Who'' (2008) On 28 September 1901, Admiral Tupper arrived at Ocean Island aboard HMS ''Pylades'' to formally take possession of the island for Great Britain. In 1903, Tupper was given a seagoing command, the cruiser , and transferred to the battleship in 1905. In 1907, he was appointed to command , a gunnery training depot. In 1912, he returned to a seagoing command with the

Home Fleet The Home Fleet was a fleet of the Royal Navy that operated from the United Kingdom's territorial waters from 1902 with intervals until 1967. In 1967, it was merged with the Mediterranean Fleet creating the new Western Fleet. Before the Fi ...

, as a rear-admiral commanding the Portsmouth Division, aboard the battleship ; he left this post in 1913.Reginald Godfrey Otway Tupper
''The Dreadnought Project'', dreadnoughtproject.org; retrieved 13 June 2015.

First World War

Tupper did not return to a command at the outbreak of the

, but in early 1915 was given command of the patrol area around the West Coast of Scotland. In early 1916 he took over command of the

Northern Patrol The Northern Patrol, also known as Cruiser Force B and the Northern Patrol Force, was an operation of the British Royal Navy during the First World War and Second World War. The Patrol was part of the British "distant" blockade of Germany. Its ma ...

from Vice Admiral

Dudley de Chair Admiral Sir Dudley Rawson Stratford de Chair (30 August 1864 – 17 August 1958) was a senior Royal Navy officer and later Governor of New South Wales. Early life and career De Chair was born on 30 August 1864 in Lennoxville, Province of ...

and was subsequently promoted to vice admiral. He had hoped for command of the 4th Battle Squadron in the Grand Fleet. He commanded the

until it was abolished in November 1917. After the Armistice, in January 1919, Tupper was promoted to admiral and appointed

Commander-in-Chief, Western Approaches Commander-in-Chief, Western Approaches was the commander of a major operational command of the Royal Navy during World War II. The admiral commanding, and his forces, sometimes informally known as 'Western Approaches Command,' were responsibl ...

, based at Queenstown (

Cobh Cobh ( ,), known from 1849 until 1920 as Queenstown, is a seaport town on the south coast of County Cork, Ireland. With a population of around 13,000 inhabitants, Cobh is on the south side of Great Island in Cork Harbour and home to Ireland's ...

) in southern Ireland. He held this post during the

Irish War of Independence The Irish War of Independence () or Anglo-Irish War was a guerrilla war fought in Ireland from 1919 to 1921 between the Irish Republican Army (1919–1922), Irish Republican Army (IRA, the army of the Irish Republic) and United Kingdom of Gre ...

, handing over command and retiring from the service in 1921. The war and Irish independence hit Tupper hard, coming from an Anglo-Irish background; he later wrote that he found it painful to think about the period.

Personal and later life

Tupper came from a politically and socially conservative background. In his twenties, he had written an article for the ''

RUSI Journal The ''RUSI Journal'' is a peer-reviewed academic journal covering international security and defence strategy. It was established in 1857 as the ''Royal United Services Institution Journal'', obtaining its current title in 1972. The journal is p ...

'' arguing that there was no benefit to be gained by appointing naval officers through

meritocratic Meritocracy (''merit'', from Latin , and ''-cracy'', from Ancient Greek 'strength, power') is the notion of a political system in which economic goods and/or political power are vested in individual people based on talent, effort, and achiev ...

competitive examination, as recruiting from the sons of officers and gentlemen would provide "brains sufficient to satisfy the scientific requirements of the Service". During the First World War, he was nicknamed "Holy Reggie" by his sailors. Following his retirement, Tupper became associated with the

British Fascisti The British Fascists was the first political organisation in the United Kingdom to claim the label of fascist, although the group had little ideological unity apart from anti-socialism for much of its existence, and was strongly associated with c ...

, a right-wing group with a large number of upper-class supporters. In 1929 he published his memoirs, ''Reminiscences''. In 1888 Tupper married Emily Charlotte Greer, the daughter of Lieutenant General

Henry Harpur Greer Lieutenant General Henry Harpur Greer CB (24 February 1821 – 27 March 1886) was an Irish officer who served in the British Army during the Victorian era. During the New Zealand Wars, he commanded the 68th Durham Regiment of Foot during t ...

, with whom he had two daughters. She died in 1929 and he remarried in 1933 to Caroline, the widow of Major General Henry Richard Abadie. He died in 1945, survived by Caroline and leaving an estate of around £6,000.Entry for Reginald Tupper (p. 835) in the ''Calendar of the Grants of Probate and Letters of Administration made in the Probate Registries of the High Court of Justice in England'' (1945).

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Tupper, Reginald 1859 births 1945 deaths Royal Navy admirals Royal Navy officers of World War I Knights Commander of the Order of the Bath Knights Grand Cross of the Order of the British Empire Commanders of the Royal Victorian Order British fascists Military personnel from London