# Dictionary of National Biography, 1927 supplement/Cradock, Christopher George Francis Maurice

​CRADOCK, Sir CHRISTOPHER GEORGE FRANCIS MAURICE (1862-1914), admiral, was born 2 July 1862 at Hartforth, Yorkshire, the fourth son of Christopher Cradock, of Hartforth, by his wife, Georgina, daughter of Major Gordon Duff, 92nd Highlanders. Christopher Cradock entered the navy in 1875, and three years later, as midshipman of the Pallas, was present at the British occupation of Cyprus. In 1884, as a sub-lieutenant, he landed with the naval brigade for garrison duties in Upper Egypt and as first lieutenant of the Dolphin, served with the Eastern Sudan field force, being chosen by the governor-general of the Red Sea to act as his aide-de-camp. He subsequently took part in the occupation of Affafit, ​receiving the khedive’s bronze star with clasp for the battle of Toker, and the medjidie of the fourth class. Cradock afterwards served in the royal yacht, from which he was promoted to commander. As commander of the Alacrity, he commanded the naval brigade which led the Allied forces at the storming of the Taku Forts, 17 July 1900, and was noted for promotion for gallantry. Later on, as commander of the British naval brigade, he directed the British, American, Japanese, and Italian forces when they advanced to the relief of the Tientsin Settlement; and he took part in the subsequent relief of Sir Edward Seymour’s column at Siku, besides assisting in the capture of the Peiyang arsenal, Tientsin.
Cradock’s career in later years followed the normal course. He filled every appointment with credit to himself, and brought to his duties not only abounding energy, but the sporting instinct. He never married. His outlook on life and his attractive conception of the naval career found expression, after his promotion to captain, in a little book entitled Whispers from the Fleet (1907). Cradock had already written Sporting Notes in the Far East (1889), and Wrinkles in Seamanship (1894), but in his latest book he addressed himself in particular to young officers who were entering upon their careers. In view of his subsequent fate, this volume has peculiar interest. He packed it with sound common sense and did not disdain to bring to his aid anecdotes and humorous pictures. He adopted and emphasized the maxim that ‘a naval officer should never let his boat go faster than his brain; a dash into a basin at 20 knots even in the strongest winds and cross tides is unnecessary. Should it come off, there is only a matey or two to see, and if it does not, there is a stone wall and a court of inquiry ahead.’ He expressed a contempt for those who were ‘for ever writing to the newspapers to prove that because one nation would have six and a half battleships built in three years, and another four and a quarter commenced next month, unless we immediately do something we shall in ten years time be seven-eighths of a battleship behind the combined navies of the world—not forgetting Timbuctoo’. The strength of the navy, he suggested, consisted in the complete loyalty and good comradeship between officers and men and ‘the sacred laws of naval discipline’. To him the navy was not a collection of ships, but a community of men with high purpose, and he had confidence that, ‘though it had lost its masts and sails, our personnel (after a few hard knocks) will prove as good as ever’.
Cradock was promoted rear-admiral in 1910, and created K.C.V.O. in 1912. In February 1913 he was appointed to the command of the North America and West Indies station. At the outbreak of war, he was faced with a task of great difficulty. With his flag in the armoured cruiser Suffolk, he had, it is true, a much larger force under his command than the two German light cruisers immediately opposed to him; but the area under his control extended from the St. Lawrence to Brazil; and, as the admiral in charge of a force designed for commerce protection, he had the duty of seeing that enemy merchant ships in Atlantic ports were shadowed and that the flow of British trade was maintained. He performed this varied work very skilfully; during the first week of the war he drove both German cruisers off the trade routes, and only missed destroying one of them—the Karlsruhe—by a very narrow margin. On 14 August 1914 the Admiralty was able to telegraph to Paris: ‘The passage across the Atlantic is safe; British trade is running as usual.’
Cradock was now compelled to take similar measures for the southern Atlantic, whither he had driven his opponents. Before proceeding south, he hoisted his flag in the Good Hope, and early in September arrived at Pernambuco, where he was told by the Admiralty that the German admiral, von Spee, with the enemy’s China squadron, was assumed to be moving eastwards across the Pacific with the Falkland Islands as a possible objective. This message quite altered the nature and scope of Cradock’s duties, as he was now faced with the double problem of countering every possible move on the part of a powerful, concentrated squadron, and, at the same time of protecting trade against the Dresden which was still at large. Either task was extraordinarily difficult; if he went in search of his principal opponent it would be quite possible for Admiral von Spee to slip past, and then fall upon our trade and coaling bases in the Atlantic. In these circumstances, Cradock telegraphed to the Admiralty that the only way of dealing with the situation was to concentrate two forces, one to the east and one to the west of the Magellan Straits, and to make each sufficiently powerful to crush Admiral von Spee’s squadron. This the Admiralty, with urgent demands at the moment for naval ​force elsewhere, did not do; it sent Cradock orders to search and protect trade, with the ships then under his command: the armoured cruisers Good Hope and Monmouth, the light cruiser Glasgow, and the armed merchantman Otranto, reinforced by the old battleship Canopus, mounting four 12-inch guns, which was being sent to join him. He at once pointed out that this addition was of no use, as it reduced the speed of his squadron to twelve knots, and so made the first part of his orders impossible of fulfilment. The Admiralty’s instructions were in any case very ambiguous; Admiral Cradock understood them as an order to seek out the enemy and fight, and this he now proceeded to do. Taking his squadron to the west coast of South America during the latter part of October, he arrived off Coronel on 31 October, having assigned to the Canopus the duty of escorting the colliers of his squadron. Meanwhile, a new board of Admiralty had been appointed with Lord Fisher as first sea lord. They at once telegraphed to him that he was to keep his squadron concentrated and form a junction with the Defence—a powerful armoured cruiser which had been ordered out from home—and that he was not expected to fight without the Canopus. The new orders never reached him. At 4.20 in the afternoon of 1 November he fell in with Admiral von Spee’s squadron consisting of the Scharnhorst, Gneisenau, Leipzig, Dresden, and Nurnberg; a force which outmatched him in gun power, armour, and speed. Cradock was quite unable to adjust the balance, as the Canopus was still 250 miles away; and, deeming it his duty to engage at once he formed his squadron in line of battle and endeavoured to close. Until sunset he still had the advantage of the light; but Admiral von Spee, making skilful use of the higher speed of his force, kept between Cradock’s squadron and the land until after sunset. It was not until about 7 o’clock p.m. that the action began. The German ships were then almost invisible with the land behind them, and the British cruisers were sharply silhouetted against the glow in the western sky. In spite of a very heavy southerly sea, the German fire was extraordinarily good, their broadside was heavier, and by eight o’clock all was over. The Good Hope sank with all on board at 7.35; the Glasgow, after taking such part in the action as was possible with her light armament, withdrew and, joining the Otranto, made good her escape; and the Monmouth succeeded, for a time, in getting away. Her condition was, however, almost hopeless, as she was making water badly and every gun was out of action. At about 9 o’clock whilst the captain was struggling to keep his vessel afloat she fell in with the Nurnberg, which had been too far behind to take part in the action. Though incapable of resistance, Captain Brandt refused to surrender, and his ship went down with all hands.
When the news of the engagement arrived in England, public opinion was critical of the action of the British admiral. The disaster was imputed to recklessness, in engaging a squadron superior to his own, and to his disregard of the orders he had received. Later investigations showed that it was impossible for him to carry out the orders sent to him and, at the same time, keep his squadron concentrated on the old and slow battleship Canopus which had been sent to him as a reinforcement. More than that, his messages home and the Admiralty’s replies proved that he had pointed this out; and that the new board of Admiralty had realized the difficulty of his position and the ambiguity of his orders.
When, later on, a memorial to Cradock was unveiled in York Minster, Mr. (afterwards the Earl of) Balfour, who was then first lord of the Admiralty, recounted the circumstances of the action and paid tribute to the memory of the admiral and his companions. ‘Admiral Cradock could only judge by the circumstances which were before him, and if he judged that his squadron, that himself and those under him, were well sacrificed if they destroyed the power of this hostile fleet, then I say that there is no man, be he sailor or be he civilian, but would say that such judgement showed not only the highest courage, but the greatest courage of unselfishness, and that Cradock, by absolute neglect of personal interest and personal ambitions, had shown a wise judgement in the interests of his country.’
Cradock is represented in Sir A. S. Cope’s picture ‘Some Sea Officers of the Great War’, painted in 1921, in the National Portrait Gallery.
[Sir J. S. Corbett, Official History of the Great War. Naval Operations, vol. i, 1920.]
A. H.