The Dictionary of Australasian Biography/Tryon, Vice-Admiral Sir George
Tryon, Vice-Admiral Sir George, K.C.B., formerly Commander-in-Chief on the Australian station, is the son of the late T. Tryon, of Bulwick Park in Northamptonshire, and was born in 1832. He entered the Royal Navy in 1848, became commander in 1860, captain in 1866, rear-admiral in 1884, and vice-admiral in 1889. He served with the Naval Brigade before Sebastopol in 1854 and 1855, for which he received a medal with two clasps, the 3rd class Medjidie, and the Turkish medal. He was director of transports during the Abyssinian war of 1868, and received a medal and special mention in despatches. Admiral Tryon was private secretary to the First Lord of the Admiralty from 1871 to 1874, British Commissioner at Sfaxenguin in 1881, Permanent Secretary to the Admiralty in 1883 and 1884, a naval aide-de-camp to Her Majesty from 1879 to 1884, and Commander-in-Chief on the Australian station from 1884 to 1887. In the latter capacity he conferred with the Australian Premiers on the subject of colonial naval defence, and was largely the originator of the plan discussed and adopted at the Colonial Conference held in London in 1887, and subsequently approved by the Colonial Legislatures, under which the Home Government agreed to provide, and the former to subsidise, a special Australasian squadron. In 1887 Admiral Tryon unsuccessfully contested the Spalding Division of Lincolnshire in the Conservative interest, and in the next year was appointed Admiral-Superintendent of Naval Reserves. In 1889 and 1890 he commanded one of the fleets engaged in the autumn manoeuvres. Admiral Tryon, who was created C.B. in 1868 and K.C.B. in 1887, married, in 1869, the Hon. Clementina Charlotte Heathcote, daughter of the 1st Lord Aveland.