Jellicoe
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
JOHN RUSHWORTH, OHN RUSHWORTH, VISCOUNT OF SCAPA, Mount of Olives, called in the Bible the SCAPA, a British British Admiral. He was born in 1859 and was educated at Rottindean a brook Kedron. born in 1859 and was . He entered tindean. He entered the navy in 1872, served in the Egyptian War of 1882, winning a Khedive's bronze star, and after becoming lieutenant won prizes at the Royal Naval College. While commanding a ship in 1893 he was wrecked off Victoria. He served in China in 1898-1901 and during that period commanded the Naval Brigade and acted as Chief of Staff to Vice- Admiral Sir E. Seymour during the attempted relief of the Peking Legations. In 1905-7 he was director of Naval Ordnance and was wounded at Peitsang. ADMIRAL JELLICOE Later Kaiser William conferred on him the Order of the Red Eagle, 2nd class (with swords) for services in China. He was made rear-admiral in 1907, and as such served in the Atlantic fleet in 1907-8. In 1908-10 he was lord commissioner of the Admiralty and controller of the Navy and in 1910-11 commanded the Atlantic fleet. In 1911-12 he commanded the Second Squadron Home Fleet, and in 1912-14 was Second Sea Lord of the Admiralty. During the European War he was in command of the Grand Fleet. He was present at the Battle of Jutland , May 31, 1916, which was the greatest naval engagement of the On that occasion he commanded war. the main fleet, composed of about 25 dreadnought battleships , and came to the assistance of Admiral Beatty shortly after the battle began. In 1915 he was created G. C. B., having in 1911 been made K. C. B. In 1916 he received the Order of Merit and has been Chief of the Naval Staff since 1917. He was made viscount at the close of the war.
What Has Changed in the Last Century
Collier's caught Jellicoe in 1921 in mid-career, noting only that he "was made viscount at the close of the war." In fact he had already been removed as First Sea Lord in December 1917, and in 1920 he went out to New Zealand as Governor-General, serving until 1924; he was created Earl Jellicoe in 1925 and died in 1935, buried in St Paul's Cathedral near Nelson. The Jutland verdict has also shifted: where the 1921 account simply calls it "the greatest naval engagement of the war," the interwar decades saw a bitter feud between Jellicoe's and Beatty's partisans over his caution, and modern opinion generally holds that although the Germans sank more tonnage, the High Seas Fleet never again seriously contested the North Sea. Churchill's judgement that he was the one man who could have lost the war in an afternoon is now quoted more often than any of the honours listed above.
Written for this edition, 2026.