Punch/Volume 147/Issue 3827/"Charlie" Beresford
By Toby, M.P.
"Lord Charles has broken his chest-bone—a piece of which was cut out in his boyhood leaving a cavity—his pelvis, right leg, right hand, foot, five ribs, one collar-bone three times, the other once, his nose three times." Thus Mr. Copy Cornford in one of the notes with which he illuminates the Memoirs of Admiral Lord Charles Beresford, published by Messrs. Methuen in two volumes, illustrated with a score of plates, the portrait of Lady Charles adding the charm of rare beauty to the collection.
For many years I have been honoured by the friendship of Lord Charles, and have had frequent opportunity of witnessing his multiform supremacy. Till I read this amazing catalogue of calamities, I never dreamt that among other claims to distinction he might have been billed as The Fractured Man, principal attraction in a travelling show, eclipsing the One-Legged Camel, the Tinted Zebra, and the Weird-Eyed Wanton from the Crusty North, who can sing in five languages "It's a Long, Long Way to Tipperary." Ignoring the monotony of experiences suffered by the ribs, and noting the obtrusiveness of one collar-bone, we may, with slight variation from a formula in use by the Speaker in the House of Commons, declare "The Nose had it." Happily no one regarding Lord Charles's cheery countenance would guess that its most prominent feature had been "broken three times."
Here is a man whose life should be written. Fortunately the task has been undertaken by Lord Charles himself, and the world is richer by a book which, instructive in many ways, valuable as throwing side-lights on the slow advance of the Navy to the proud position which it holds to-day on the North Sea, bubbles over with humour.
Record opens in the year 1859, when Lord Charles entered the Navy, closing just half-a-century later, when he hauled down his flag and permanently came ashore. Within the space of fifty years there is crammed a life of adventure richly varied in range. A man of exuberant individuality, which has occasional tendency to obscure supreme capacity, of fearless courage, gifted with a combination of wit and humour, Lord Charles is the handy-man to whom in emergency everyone looked not only for counsel but for help. It is a paradox, but a probability, that had he been duller-witted, a more ponderous person, he would have carried more weight alike in the councils of the Admiralty at Whitehall and of the nation at Westminster.
As these memoirs testify, behind a smiling countenance he hides an unbending resolution to serve the public interest, whether aboard ship or in his place in Parliament. Perhaps the most familiar incident in his professional career is his exploit during the bombardment of Alexandria, when the signal flashed from the flag-ship, "Well done, Condor." A more substantial service was his command of what he describes as "the penny steamer" Safieh, whose manœuvring on the Nile amid desperate circumstances averted from Sir Charles Wilson's desert column, hastening to the rescue of Gordon, the fate which earlier had befallen Stewart.
Another splendid piece of work was accomplished when, after the bombardment of Alexandria he was appointed Provost-Marshal and Chief of Police, and had committed to his charge the task of restoring order. His conspicuous success on this occasion bore fruit many years later when he was offered the post of Chief Commissioner of Police in the Metropolis. His story of the Egyptian and Soudan Wars, carried through several chapters, is a valuable contribution to history. It suggests that, all other avenues to fame closed against him, Lord Charles would have made an enduring name as a war correspondent.
It is a circumstance incredible, save in view of the authority upon which it is stated, that, as part of the reward for his splendid service in the Soudan, Lord Charles narrowly escaped compulsory retirement from the Service before he had completed the time required to qualify for Flag Rank. The Queen's Regulations ordained that before a captain could win this prized position he must have completed a period of from five to six years of active service. In 1892, Lord Charles, the flag almost in reach of his hand, applied for permission to count-in the 315 days he was strenuously and brilliantly at work in the Soudan. The Board of Admiralty, invulnerable in their environment of red tape, refused the request, repeating the non possumus when on two subsequent occasions the request was preferred.
It must be admitted that th eBoard had no reason to regard Lord Charles with favour or even with equanimity. When returned to Parliament, the man who had superintended the mending of the boiler on the penny steamboat on the Nile, devoted himself to the bigger task of mending the Navy, at that time in an equally pitiful condition. During his brief and solitary term of office as Junior Lord of the Admiralty, Lord Charles, who thought he was put there to do some work, drew up a memorandum on the necessity of creating at the Admiralty a Naval Intelligence Department. The memorandum was laid before the Board, and the Junior Lord was told he was meddling with high matters that did not come within the scope of his business. A few weeks later a Naval Intelligence Department (or a sort) was created. Sic vos non vobis.
'Twas ever thus. Lord Charles, whether in office, on active service, or from his familiar place above the Gangway in the House of Commons, bringing to bear upon Naval affairs the gift of keen intuition and the endowment of long practical experience, has, with one exception, done more than any many living to deliver the Navy from mistakes inevitable in the case of the over-lordship of a civilian who is subject to currents of political and party feeling. By way of reward he has received more kicks than ha'pence.