The longevity of Admiral Sir Erasmus Ommanney

Admiral Sir Erasmus Ommanney
'Father of the British Navy'

Born in London on 22 May 1814, Erasmus Ommanney arguably became the most significant naval figure in the family’s history.

The twelve year-old Erasmus entered the Navy in August 1826 under his uncle, John Acworth Ommanney, then Captain of HMS Albion. On 20 October 1827, when only 13, he took part in the Battle of Navarino. Over the succeeding decades the captured flag of the Turkish Commander-in-Chief was handed down by seniority among the surviving officers until 1890, when Ommanney, the sole survivor of the action, presented it to King George I of Greece.

Longevity alone would perhaps not have been sufficient to earn him the title of 'Father of the British Navy' seventy years later; but an early start at an iconic engagement (and Navarino was the last major naval engagement fought entirely under sail) was certainly enough to secure it. To the Edwardians who scanned their morning papers for news of Admiral Ommanney's health in his declining years, Navarino must have seemed impossibly remote.

In response to a question on the identity of Britain’s oldest surviving military officer, the following appeared in Notes and Queries on 2 July 1904:

OUR OLDEST MILITARY OFFICER
According to Hart's 'Army List' for 1904, there was still living on 31 December 1903, General Charles Algernon Lewis, of the North Staffordshire Regiment (64th Foot), whose first commission was dated 13 October, 1825, as well as General Henry Carr Tats, of the Royal Marine Artillery, whose dates from 30 June, 1829; but it is possible that even these are not the oldest surviving military officers. In regard to the senior service, the Royal Navy list for April, 1901, gives Admiral Sir Erasmus Ommanney as having entered the navy in August, 1826; Admiral Sir Edward Fanshawe in September, 1828; and Admiral Sir Arthur Farquhar on 13 March, 1829; and of these Admiral Ommanney is specially to be noted as having taken part in the battle of Navarino in 1827.

Erasmus Ommanney’s visiting card, 1900.
The reverse reads: Navarin – 1827. Arctic service – 1836. Discovered the 1850-57 first traces ever found of Franklin’s missing ships 23rd August 1850. Russian War commanded the Naval force in the White Sea 1854 1855. Served in the Baltic. Commanded the force in the Gulf of Riga – repulsed a flotilla of Russian Gun Boats under cover of the Batteries.



Ommanney died on 21 December 1904 at his son’s home, St Michael's vicarage, St Michael's Road, Southsea, Hampshire, and was buried in Old Mortlake Cemetery. He was 90. It had been a very public decline, with frequent press bulletins as to his health as far back as May 1903. The Aberdeen Journal of 22 December said that he “had been ill for some time... He had been lying almost unconscious at his son’s house for a considerable time, and a change for the worse set in on Sunday”.

Pre-prepared obituaries flew off the editors' shelves, and competed to find the most effective way of expressing the Admiral's links with the distant past:

 

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Admiral Sir Erasmus Ommanney was born in the year before the battle of Waterloo, on May 22, 1814, and entered the Navy in August, 1826, eleven years before Queen Victoria came to the throne. He was the son of Sir Francis Molyneux Ommanney, M.P. for Barnstaple and Navy Agent. His first ship was the Albion, a famous seventy-four of the Napoleonic War, built while Nelson was alive, and in her, as a midshipman, he had his first experience of fighting – at the battle of Navarino. At Navarino the Albion was in the hottest of the fighting, and was run alongside of by a Turkish two-decker, whose men swarmed on board en masse in a desperate attempt to capture the vessel. [...text missing in original..]. task he fought a smart action with a flotilla of Russian gunboats, which he defeated and drove out from under the shelter of some heavy shore batteries. After the war, Sir Erasmus Ommanney served successively in the West Indies, in the Channel, and the Mediterranean, as captain of the Brunswick, of eighty guns. Our portrait is by Russell and Sons, Southsea.

West Gippsland Gazette, June 30th 1903
A NAVAL VETERAN SIR ERASMUS OMMANNEY.
Sir Erasumus Ommanney, who was lying ill on May 18th, is one of the oldest sailors who have sailed under the British flag. He is an astonishing link with the historic past. He was in the King's Navy when Lord Liverpool was Prime Minister of England, and was fighting for his country before the grass had grown over Canning's grave. George the Fourth was on the Throne when he received his baptism of fire at Navarino, and it is amazing to remember that that battle was fought all but eighty years ago. Sir Erasmus Ommanney was there, under the command of Admiral Codrington, and he is perhaps, the only man now living who would give us a first hand description of what the Duke of Wellington called "that untoward event." Admiral Ommanney, in those far-off days, assisted at the landing of the British Army in Lisbon, helped to destroy the Turkish Fleet at Navarino, was on the yacht which conveyed Queen Adelaide to Holland and back, and explored the Arctics in search of the missing whalers under Sir James Ross. Few men can look back so far and say, "I was alive then"; but how many can look back, one wonders, and say, "I was present at that event?" Admiral Ommanney, seventy years ago and more, was helping to shape the history of the world. He is perhaps the only officer who has fought for England side by side with Russia and against her. He had around him at Navarino French and Russian troops, concentrating their strength upon the destruction of the Turkish and Egyptian fleet, and in later years, in the Crimea, he found himself commanding vessels whose guns were turned against his old comrades. He was closely associated with the fortunes of Greece in the early years of last century, and was at Athens during the revolution of 1844 and the establishment of the Constitution which followed. It would be almost as easy to say what Admiral Ommanney has not done as to say what he has done. It was he who found the first traces ever discovered of Sir John Franklin's lost ships. He spent the winter of 1850 as near the North Pole as he could get, and was sixty days in travelling 500 miles over the ice. His exploration of the coast added something to our knowledge of the Arctics. He has been at the other side of the world, too. Before Queen Victoria came to the throne Sir Erasmus Omrnanney was searching the Antarctic world for lost whaling crews. He was under the son of Sir John Ross, and has vivid memories of the winter he spent in Baffin's Bay and along the coasts of Greenland and Labrador. He has medals for these services to peace as well as distinctions for heroism in war, and it is not surprising that such a man has more letters after his name than there are in the alphabet. If he were well enough to follow it, Admiral Ommanney would be interested in the dawn of a new era in Ireland. There is hardly a place between the Poles which he has not known in the course of his wonderful life, and he has been in Ireland too. More than half a century ago he was there during a famine, helping to alleviate the sufferings of the people...



For all that, his funeral was a remarkably restrained affair:

Portmouth Evening News, 28 December 1904
A fog hung over Mortlake on Tuesday afternoon when the remains of the late Admiral Ommanney were laid to rest. The coffin was brought to Wimbledon station, and thence by road to Mortlake Cemetery. In the same train travelled the Rev EA Ommanney (the eldest son), Mr E W Hansell (son- in-law), Commander E D Ommanney (a nephew), and a bearer party from the Royal Naval Barracks, Ports. At the graveside, awaiting the arrival of the coffin were Colonel Albert Ommanney, Captain Ommanney, Mr Charles Ommanney CMG, and Sir Montagu Ommanney (nephews), Colonel Monagu Ommanney and Colonel Edward Ommannel (cousins), Mr Edmund F T Bennett (a nephew by marriage) and Admiral Sir Digby Morant... The coffin, still covered with a Union flag, and having on it the late Admiral’s cocked hat, sword, and scimitar – a Navarino trophy, which he highly prized – was borne from the hearse to the grave by six bluejackets. The seventh man of the party walked behind the coffin, and carried a cushion on which rested the late Admiral’s orders and medals.