Observatories.
21st August, 1906.
In the past Greenwich Observatory has been of great importance to the Navy, inasmuch as all the data necessary for the navigation of ships by astronomical observation have been compiled there. The testing of chronometers has been carried out at Greenwich since their invention in 1762, while the Cape Observatory was instituted in 1820 in order to supply data concerning Southern stars not visible from Greenwich.
In recent years, however, the familiarity with Ocean routes that has been attained; the greatly extended area of coast surveys, and the admirable system of lights and beacons established throughout the navigational zones of the world, have in the course of years caused the work of the Observatories to become of less importance to practical navigation, and more a matter of scientific research. The photographic mapping of the heavens, by which stars invisible to the naked eye are discovered, is not a necessity to navigation, nor to the Naval Service.
At the present time, therefore, it may be said that the only work done by the Observatories which is directly useful to the Navy, is the testing and storing of chronometers; observing the astronomical changes connected with the heavenly bodies for the purpose of obtaining data for the correction of the Nautical Almanack; supplying accurate time for time signals and meridian distance work, and taking magnetic observations.
This sphere of usefulness is not of advantage to the Navy alone. The Mercantile Marine derives equal benefit from the work of the Observatories. Greenwich time is indispensable to Railway Companies to enable them to work their complicated systems with accuracy, and it is equally indispensable to the Postal Authorities for the proper working of every post and telegraph office in the Kingdom. Although the staff of the Observatories is very largely occupied upon services of this public character, neither the Board of Trade, nor Lloyd’s, nor the various Mercantile Shipping Associations, nor the Railway Companies, nor the General Post Office, have made any contribution towards their cost, while, on the other hand, in one case, that of the Post Office, the Admiralty is charged with a heavy annual payment for postal and telegraphic communications. The London Water Companies are greatly assisted by the Greenwich rainfall observations, but they pay nothing for them, neither do they supply the Admiralty with water gratuitously.
It is fitting that the British Empire should possess a National Observatory, but it is not equitable that Naval funds should bear the whole expense.
When criticism is directed against the magnitude of the Navy Estimates, it rarely happens that the critic takes the trouble to ascertain of what Items the Votes are made up; on the other hand, money voted for the Royal Observatories is passed by the House without much question, because it happens to form part of Estimates which are of such great magnitude.
The present procedure tends therefore to obscure the actual sum total of the Navy Estimates, and at the same time it prevents the application to the Royal Observatories of the same Parliamentary criticism which is applied to the Civil Service Estimates.
CHAPTER IX
NAVAL PROBLEMS
[The three privately printed volumes entitled “Naval Necessities,” 1904, 1905, and 1906, contain papers written or collected by Sir John Fisher, as Commander-in-Chief at Portsmouth and as First Sea Lord of the Admiralty, bearing upon the Naval Reforms which he then introduced or contemplated. The following selections from these papers tell their own story.]
Sir John Fisher to Lord Selborne, First Lord of the Admiralty.
Dear Lord Selborne, ...
You remember you glanced through some manuscript in my office at Portsmouth the day you embarked in “Enchantress,” and I gathered that you saw much in them that commended itself to you. Well! having thus more or less got a favourable opinion from you, I elaborated that manuscript which you had read, and printed it with my confidential printer; ... then I gave it secretly to the five best brains in the Navy below the rank of Admiral to thresh out; and associated two other brains for the consideration of the types of future fighting vessels; then I selected out of those seven brains the one with the most facile pen and ... said to him: “Write a calm and dispassionate précis for me to give the First Lord.” You may be confident (as confident as I know you are) that the First Sea Lord won’t ever sell you! that these seven brains may be absolutely relied upon for secrecy. I have tested each of them for many years!
These are the seven brains: Jackson, F.R.S., Jellicoe, C.B., Bacon, D.S.O., Madden, M.V.O., Wilfred Henderson (who has all the signs of the Zodiac after his name!), associated with Gard, M.V.O., Chief Constructor of Portsmouth Dockyard, and who splendidly kept the Mediterranean Fleet efficient for three years, and Gracie, the best Marine Engineer in the world!
This is the “modus operandi” I suggest to you. If these proposals in their rough outline commend themselves to you and our colleagues on the Board, then let me have these seven, assisted by Mr. Boar (who is a mole in the Accountant-General’s Department—you know of him only by upheavals of facts and figures!), and secretly these eight will get out a detailed statement supported by facts and figures for consideration before we take a step further!...
Please now just a few words of explanation at the possibly apparent (but in no ways real) slight put on those at the Admiralty who might be thought the right persons to conduct these detailed inquiries instead of the eight brains I’ve mentioned!
In the first place, any such heavy extraneous work (such as is here involved) means an utter dislocation of the current work of the Admiralty if carried out by the regular Admiralty staff! and as any such extraneous work must of necessity give place to any very pressing current work, then the extraneous work doesn’t get done properly—so both suffer!—But further! these seven other spirits (not more wicked than any of those at the Admiralty!) will be absolutely untrammelled by any remarks of their own in the official records in the Admiralty, and will not be cognisant (and so not influenced!) by the past written official minutes of the High and Mighty Ones, and so we shall get the directness and unfettered candour that we desire! (Parenthesis:—A most distinguished man at the War Office used to think he had gained his point and blasted the Admiralty by collecting extracts 20 years old with opposing decisions! absolutely regardless that what is right to-day may be wrong to-morrow! but he traded on what we all dislike—the charge of inconsistency!—Why! the two most inconsistent men who ever lived, the two greatest men who ever lived and the two most successful men who ever lived, were Nelson and Napoleon!)
Nelson most rightly said that no sailor could ever be such a born ass as to attack forts with ships (he was absolutely right), and then he went straight at them at Copenhagen. Napoleon said, “L’audace, l’audace, toujours l’audace!” and then he went and temporised at Warsaw for three solid weeks (was it a Polish Countess?), and so got ruined at Moscow in consequence of this delay.
Circumstances alter cases! That’s the answer to the charge of inconsistency. So please let us have this excellent and unparalleled small working Committee to thresh out all these details (when the general outlines have been considered), but this very special point will no doubt be borne in mind:—“Until you have these details how can you say you approve of the outline?” So what has to be said finally is that if the facts and figures corroborate what is sketched out, then the proposals can be considered for adoption, so the ultimate result is this:—“Let the Committee get on at once.”
J. A. Fisher.
19/10/04.
Sir John Fisher and Sir Colin Keppel (Captain of the Royal Yacht).