Devonshire Characters and Strange Events

When the Devon Volunteers landed in South Africa, Sir Edward saw to their disembarkation, and also saw them leave for the front. One of the Barnstaple men relates that as they moved away Sir Edward put his hands to his mouth, funnel-wise, and shouted: “Mind, you Devon chaps, give the Boers a d – d good hiding.”

During the war Sir Edward stayed in one of the smallest hotels in Cape Town, near the docks, as more convenient to his work than one that was larger and up town. But the food provided there was execrable. Sir Edward, unable to stomach this, one day provided himself with a gigantic cheese that he had purchased, and entered the coffee-room carrying it, and thereon he made his lunch.

At the same time there was staying in the hotel a Dutchman whom every one looked upon as a spy. In the evening Sir Edward was late for dinner, and the Hollander early. Imagine, therefore, the gallant captain’s disgust when on entering the room he found the Dutchman tucking into his cheese. He paused in the doorway, stared, and then thundered out: “I say, waiter, look there! I’m d – d if that Boer spy isn’t eating my cheese! By heavens, it’s a bullet or two he should have inside him and not my cheese!”

Every one but the Dutchman burst into a roar of laughter.

He was made C.B. in October, 1900, and was naval A.D.C. to Queen Victoria, and afterwards to the King, from 1899 to 1904. On his return from South Africa he took command of the fleet reserve at Devonport. He was promoted to Rear-Admiral in January, 1902, and on June 10th, 1904, was appointed Admiral-Superintendent, with charge of His Majesty’s naval establishments at Gibraltar. He had married the daughter of the late Commander R. C. Whyte, R.N., of Instow, in 1880, and by her had four sons and six daughters.

He returned to England hale and cheerful in 1900. On arriving in North Devon he was welcomed by his tenantry with great rejoicings, and was presented with an illuminated address, which was read in the presence of a large assembly of local notabilities by his brother, the rector of Sherwill. His first words in reply were, “You said that very well, Pass’n Charles.”

He went back to his duties at Gibraltar, where he died on September 17th, 1906. The body was brought to Plymouth in the Formidable, and thence conveyed by train to North Devon, and the obsequies took place at Sherwill. Sir Edward had seldom resided at Youlston when in England, but at his bungalow, Instow.

“Outside his own country and navy,” said the Paris edition of the New York Herald, “the untimely death of Rear-Admiral Chichester, R.N., cannot be more regretted than by the American people and its naval service. During the critical period succeeding the capture of Manila, this British officer proved himself a steadfast supporter of our rights in those waters. While scrupulously observing the obligations imposed on him as a neutral, his official and personal conduct strengthened the hands of Admiral Dewey, harassed as he was by the inexplicable and annoying performances of the German admiral on that station. The prompt and graceful action of Rear-Admiral Brownson on his arrival off Gibraltar, with the American armoured cruiser division, in furnishing an escort for the funeral of this distinguished officer, will therefore be earnestly approved by our Government and people. It was both a recognition of the personal esteem in which Rear-Admiral Chichester was held, and a fitting official testimony to the services rendered by him when our friends were few and far between.”

The Morning Chronicle said: “Admiral Sir Edward Chichester was a splendid specimen of the British naval officer. In physique, in his bluff heartiness of manner, in his racy conversation, in the very roll of his walk, he was every inch a sailor. Wherever he went he carried with him the savour of the sea. A thorough West-countryman – a man ‘of Bideford in Devon’ – he preserved the traditions of the old Elizabethan sailors, and seemed indeed to be in the lineal succession to Grenville and Hawkins, to Drake and Raleigh.”

Equally sympathetic was a notice in the Standard: —

“In Rear-Admiral Sir Edward Chichester there has passed away a sailor after Lord St. Vincent’s own heart. We had said after Nelson’s, but Nelson had no hand in the administrative work of the Navy, in which Sir Edward took so great, if subordinate, a share. He belonged to a class which will probably become more and more rare in the Navy – the type of blunt sailor who is a sailor first, second and last, but who, just because he is all a sailor, is also an inimitable diplomatist, prompt and resolute, seeking no quarrel, but fearing no responsibility. We do not for a moment imply that these qualities are not to be found in abundance in the new Navy; but the naval officer of to-day has the habits and manners of the world in a degree to which a sailor of the school of Sir Edward Chichester did not attain.”

At a dinner given in honour of Sir Redvers Buller in Exeter, in November, 1900, the late Lord Clinton, in the course of a speech on that occasion, said: —

“I believe if ever there was the right man in the right place, it was Sir Edward Chichester. Go outside England – go to America, and ask what is thought of him there. We know that the opinion is very high. I believe if the American Navy were at war, and found Sir Edward Chichester on the high seas without an escort, they would kidnap him, and place him at the head of the American Navy. Many American stories are told about Sir Edward. They are perhaps not all true. But if not all true, I think they are well conceived. There is one I have heard about an admiral who greatly admired Sir Edward, and greatly admired England. The admiral bought a lion cub, and wishing always to have the type of Britain before him, he called it Chichester. Sir Edward Chichester, I dare say to his sorrow, was never a combatant officer in this war, but his heart was with his gallant comrades who arrived so opportunely at Ladysmith.”

Some remarkable coincidences were noted on the occasion of the death of Admiral Chichester.

His flagship, the sloop Cormorant, was formally paid off on the date of his death, and recommissioned for similar service under Rear-Admiral J. G. C. Goodrich, who left Plymouth for Gibraltar to take up his appointment. In accord with an arrangement made some weeks before, the battleship Formidable was directed to call at Gibraltar and embark the paid-off men of the Cormorant for passage home. The Formidable on reaching Gibraltar received the news of Sir Edward’s death, and was at once ordered to arrange for the body to be received on board, so that the late admiral and the crew of his flagship came home in the same vessel – a vessel which was also bound to her paying-off port. The paying-off of a flagship on the same day as that on which the death took place of the admiral whose flag she bore was probably unique in the annals of the British Navy. It was also a noteworthy circumstance that Rear-Admiral Goodrich, who in the ordinary way would have succeeded Admiral Chichester early in the ensuing month, left Plymouth Sound on the very same day as that on which the body of his predecessor arrived at that port from Gibraltar.

The speech of Captain Chichester to the German admiral – “That is a matter known only to Dewey and me” – may be seen inscribed in the Naval School in Annapolis, U.S.A., where it embellishes one of the walls of the academy. It may be noted that Annapolis is one of the most British towns in the United States, in the style of its streets and architecture generally, and there is surely no English name more beloved in the American Navy than that of bluff old Admiral Chichester.