Admiral Admiral is one of the highest ranks in many navies. In the Commonwealth nations and the United States, a "full" admiral is equivalent to a "full" general in the army or the air force. Admiral is ranked above vice admiral and below admiral of ...

Sir Richard Edward Tracey (24 January 1837 – 7 March 1907) was a

Royal Navy The Royal Navy (RN) is the naval warfare force of the United Kingdom. It is a component of His Majesty's Naval Service, and its officers hold their commissions from the King of the United Kingdom, King. Although warships were used by Kingdom ...

officer who became President of the Royal Naval College, Greenwich.

Naval career

Tracey joined the

in 1852 and served in the

Baltic Sea The Baltic Sea is an arm of the Atlantic Ocean that is enclosed by the countries of Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Russia, Sweden, and the North European Plain, North and Central European Plain regions. It is the ...

during the

Crimean War The Crimean War was fought between the Russian Empire and an alliance of the Ottoman Empire, the Second French Empire, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, and the Kingdom of Sardinia (1720–1861), Kingdom of Sardinia-Piedmont fro ...

.Admiral Sir Richard Edward Tracey
Oxford Dictionary of National Biography He took part in the Bombardment of Kagoshima in 1863 and the Shimonoseki Campaign in 1864 during the Late Tokugawa Shogunate conflicts. British diplomat

Ernest Satow Sir Ernest Mason Satow (30 June 1843 – 26 August 1929), was a British diplomat, scholar and Japanologist. He is better known in Japan, where he was known as , than in Britain or the other countries in which he served as a diplomat. He was ...

, appointed as interpreter to Admiral Kuper on board HMS Euryalus during the Shimonoseki Campaign, noted Tracey's "love of books" and his "wide knowledge of modern languages, acquired by dint of sheer perseverance amid all the nosiy distractions of life on board ship". At the request of the Bakamatsu Government and on the recommendation of the British Consul, Sir Harry Smith Parkes and

, Tracey was invited by them to assist in the organization of a naval training school at Tsukiji,

Tokyo Tokyo, officially the Tokyo Metropolis, is the capital of Japan, capital and List of cities in Japan, most populous city in Japan. With a population of over 14 million in the city proper in 2023, it is List of largest cities, one of the most ...

an institution that after the

Meiji Restoration The , referred to at the time as the , and also known as the Meiji Renovation, Revolution, Regeneration, Reform, or Renewal, was a political event that restored Imperial House of Japan, imperial rule to Japan in 1868 under Emperor Meiji. Althoug ...

became the Imperial Japanese Naval Academy. Tracey subsequently became Commanding Officer of the

battleship A battleship is a large, heavily naval armour, armored warship with a main battery consisting of large naval gun, guns, designed to serve as a capital ship. From their advent in the late 1880s, battleships were among the largest and most form ...

HMS ''Iron Duke'', flagship of the Commander-in-Chief, China, in 1881 and Commanding Officer of the

ironclad warship An ironclad was a steam-propelled warship protected by steel or iron armor constructed from 1859 to the early 1890s. The ironclad was developed as a result of the vulnerability of wooden warships to explosive or incendiary shells. The firs ...

HMS ''Sultan'' in 1884. In April 1885 Tracey became an aide-de-camp to Queen Victoria, and in July was appointed to Portsmouth dockyard. He reached flag rank on 1 January 1888. He went on to be Second-in-Command of the Channel Squadron in 1889, Admiral Superintendent of Malta Dockyard in 1892 and President of the Royal Naval College, Greenwich in 1897 He was placed on the retired list 24 January 1902. He is buried at Kensal Green Cemetery.

References

Sources

*Clowes, Sir William Laird, ''The Royal Navy : a history from the earliest times to the present'' Published by S. Low, Marston and Company, Limited, London, 1903.

External links

* , - {{DEFAULTSORT:Tracey, Richard 1837 births 1907 deaths Royal Navy admirals Knights Commander of the Order of the Bath Admiral presidents of the Royal Naval College, Greenwich Burials at Kensal Green Cemetery

Naval career

See also

References

Sources

External links