AdmiralAdmiral is the rank, or part of the name of the ranks, of the highest naval officers. It is usually considered a full admiral and above Vice Admiral and below Admiral of the Fleet/Fleet Admiral. It is usually abbreviated to "Adm." or "ADM"...
Sir Cecil Halliday Jepson Harcourt,
GBEThe Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry established on 4 June 1917 by King George V. The Order includes five classes in civil and military divisions...
,
KCBThe Most Honourable Order of the Bath is a British order of chivalry founded by George I on 18 May 1725. The name derives from the medieval ceremony for creating a knight, which involved bathing as one of its elements. The knights so created were known as Knights of the Bath...
, (
ChineseChinese or the Sinitic language is a language family consisting of languages mutually unintelligible to varying degrees. Originally the indigenous languages spoken by the Han Chinese in China, it forms one of the two branches of Sino-Tibetan family of languages...
Translated Name: 夏慤) (11 April 1892 – 19 December 1959) was a
BritishThe United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is a sovereign state located off the northwestern coast of continental Europe. It is an island country, spanning an archipelago including Great Britain, the northeastern part of Ireland, and many small islands...
naval commander.
He was born in
BromleyBromley is a large suburban town in southeast London, England and the administrative headquarters of the London Borough of Bromley. It is located southeast of Charing Cross and is one of the major metropolitan centres identified in the London Plan. It was historically a market town in the county...
,
London[]London is the capital of England and the United Kingdom. It has been a major settlement for two millennia, and the history of London goes back to its founding by the Romans, when it was named Londinium. London's core, the ancient City of London, the 'square mile', retains its medieval boundaries...
, son of Halliday Harcourt and Grace Lilian née Jepson. He had a distinguished career in the Royal Navy, which he entered as a midshipman on 15 September 1904, at the age of 12. He served in both world wars.
In 1939, he was appointed Director of the Admiralty's Operations Division.
AdmiralAdmiral is the rank, or part of the name of the ranks, of the highest naval officers. It is usually considered a full admiral and above Vice Admiral and below Admiral of the Fleet/Fleet Admiral. It is usually abbreviated to "Adm." or "ADM"...
Sir Cecil Halliday Jepson Harcourt,
GBEThe Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry established on 4 June 1917 by King George V. The Order includes five classes in civil and military divisions...
,
KCBThe Most Honourable Order of the Bath is a British order of chivalry founded by George I on 18 May 1725. The name derives from the medieval ceremony for creating a knight, which involved bathing as one of its elements. The knights so created were known as Knights of the Bath...
, (
ChineseChinese or the Sinitic language is a language family consisting of languages mutually unintelligible to varying degrees. Originally the indigenous languages spoken by the Han Chinese in China, it forms one of the two branches of Sino-Tibetan family of languages...
Translated Name: 夏慤) (11 April 1892 – 19 December 1959) was a
BritishThe United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is a sovereign state located off the northwestern coast of continental Europe. It is an island country, spanning an archipelago including Great Britain, the northeastern part of Ireland, and many small islands...
naval commander.
Biography
He was born in
BromleyBromley is a large suburban town in southeast London, England and the administrative headquarters of the London Borough of Bromley. It is located southeast of Charing Cross and is one of the major metropolitan centres identified in the London Plan. It was historically a market town in the county...
,
London[]London is the capital of England and the United Kingdom. It has been a major settlement for two millennia, and the history of London goes back to its founding by the Romans, when it was named Londinium. London's core, the ancient City of London, the 'square mile', retains its medieval boundaries...
, son of Halliday Harcourt and Grace Lilian née Jepson. He had a distinguished career in the Royal Navy, which he entered as a midshipman on 15 September 1904, at the age of 12. He served in both world wars.
In 1939, he was appointed Director of the Admiralty's Operations Division. In 1941 he was Flag Captain of the Home Fleet, while commanding HMS Duke of York. From 1942 to 1944 he took part in the North Africa campaign, the capture of
TunisiaTunisia , officially the Tunisian Republic , is a country located in North Africa. It is bordered by Algeria to the west and Libya to the southeast. Tunisia is located southwest of the island of Sicily and south of Sardinia. Its size is almost 165,000 km² with an estimated population of just...
,
PantelleriaPantelleria , the ancient Cossyra, is an Italian island in the Strait of Sicily in the Mediterranean Sea, 100 km southwest of Sicily and just 70 km east of the Tunisian coast...
.
LampedusaThe Mediterranean island of Lampedusa belongs to Italy and is the largest of the Pelagie Islands, situated 205 km from Sicily and 113 km from Tunisia. Its population subsists on fishing, agriculture and tourism...
and
SicilySicily is the largest island in the Mediterranean Sea. It is an autonomous region of Italy. Several much smaller islands surrounding it are considered to be part of Sicily....
, and the landing at
SalernoSalerno is a small city in Campania and is the capital of the province of the same name. It is located on the Gulf of Salerno on the Tyrrhenian Sea....
. In 1944 he became Naval Secretary to the First Lord of the Admiralty. In 1945, he was Flag Officer Commanding 11th Aircraft Carrier Squadron.
He became famous after the surrender of Japanese forces (under Vice-Admiral Fujita and Lieutenant-General Tanaka) in
Hong KongHong Kong , officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, is a highly autonomous territory of the People's Republic of China, facing Guangdong to the north and the South China Sea to the east, west and south...
. He became the head of a provisional military government in Hong Kong from September 1945 to April 1946, serving as administrator until civilian rule could be established. He was knighted during this time, in December 1945.
In 1947, Harcourt became Flag Officer (Air) and Second in Command Mediterranean Fleet. In 1948, he became
Second Sea LordThe Second Sea Lord and Commander-in-Chief Naval Home Command , commonly just known as the Second Sea Lord , is one of the most senior admirals of the British Royal Navy, responsible for personnel and naval shore establishments....
and a Lord Commissioner of the Admiralty, and in 1950 Commander-in-Chief,
Nore CommandThe Nore Command was a major operational command of the Royal Navy for several hundred years until it was disbanded in the 1960s. At its height, it was commanded by an officer of the rank of Admiral and was one of the most important commands for the defence of the United Kingdom.The Nore is the...
.
Ships he commanded
Ships under Harcourt's command included:
- HMS Wessex (1931)
- HMS Stuart (1935; leader of the Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the continental mainland , the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans...
n Destroyer Flotilla)
- HMS President (1939)
- HMS Duke of York (1941)
- HMS Sheffield
HMS Sheffield was one of the Southampton sub class of the Town class cruisers of the Royal Navy during the Second World War. She took part in actions against several major German warships. Unlike most Royal Navy ships of her time, her fittings were constructed from stainless steel instead of the...
- cruiser (1942)
- HMS Aurora (1942)
- HMS Cleopatra (renamed HMS Mauritius) (1943)
- HMS Venerable (1945)
- HMS Tamar (1945)
- HMS Newfoundland - cruiser
- HMS Swiftsure
HMS Swiftsure was a Minotaur class light cruiser of the Royal Navy. She was laid down by Vickers Armstrong at Newcastle-on-Tyne on 22 September 1941, launched on 4 February 1943 by Lady Wake-Walker and commissioned on 22 June 1944....
.
Private life
On 17 April 1913, he assumed the surname "Harcourt-Morris", but this lasted only a short time.
In 1920 he became the second husband of the English pianist
Evelyn SuartEvelyn Suart, Lady Harcourt was a notable English pianist.She was born in 1881 in Sindapore, India, the daughter of Brigadier-General W. H. Suart, and she spent some of her early childhood there. She also lived for periods in Gibraltar and England. Her piano studies were with Storck in...
, a widow. They had no children of their own. One of her daughters by her first marriage was the noted ballerina
Diana GouldDiana Gould, later Diana Mehuhin, Baroness Menuhin was a British ballerina and occasional actress and singer, who is best remembered as the second wife of the violinist Yehudi Menuhin...
, who became the second wife of the violinist
Yehudi MenuhinYehudi Menuhin, Baron Menuhin, OM, KBE was a violinist and conductor who spent most of his performing career in the United Kingdom. He was born to Jewish parents in the United States, but became a citizen of Switzerland in 1970, and of the United Kingdom in 1985. He is commonly considered one of...
. . Her sister Griselda became the second wife of the pianist
Louis KentnerLouis Kentner was a Hungarian, later British, pianist who excelled in the works of Chopin and Liszt, as well as the Hungarian repertoire....
. After Evelyn Suart's death in 1950, Harcourt married Stella, widow of Air Commodore David Waghorn, in 1953.
Honours
- He was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire
The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry established on 4 June 1917 by King George V. The Order includes five classes in civil and military divisions...
(CBE) in 1940.
- In 1943 he was appointed a Commander of the Order of the Bath
The Most Honourable Order of the Bath is a British order of chivalry founded by George I on 18 May 1725. The name derives from the medieval ceremony for creating a knight, which involved bathing as one of its elements. The knights so created were known as Knights of the Bath...
(CB).
- On 18 December 1945, he was made a Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath (KCB).
- In 1953 he was appointed a Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the British Empire (GBE).
Places named after him
Harcourt RoadHarcourt Road is a major road in Admiralty in Hong Kong, connecting Wan Chai and Central.-History:Built after World War II, Harcourt Road was once a waterfront promenade and to ease congestion on Hong Kong Island...
, a main road on
Hong Kong IslandHong Kong Island is an island in the southern part of Hong Kong. It has a population of 1,289,500 and its population density is 16,390/km², as of 2008...
, in Hong Kong is named after him.
Harcourt ParkHarcourt Park or Harcourt Gardens is a small urban park in Admiralty, Hong Kong. The park is located next to the Hong Kong Police Force's Headquarters and named for Admiral Cecil Harcourt....
is also named after him.
External links