Anson, Lord George (1697–1762), British admiral of the fleet, circumnavigator, strategist, and administrator, one of the founders of the naval profession as it became known to later generations. As a young man he had a variety of service including a spell in the Baltic, and he made extended cruises in American, West Indian, and African waters.
Anson's first great opportunity came as a
post-captain in 1740 at the beginning of the war with Spain and France. He was given charge of a small
squadron of six ships with the rank of commodore and ordered to the Pacific where he was to harry Spanish possessions and if possible to capture one of the
treasure ships which sailed yearly from Acapulco in Mexico across the Pacific to Manila.
Although he had some success, by June 1743 misadventure had reduced Anson's force to a single ship, the
Centurion. However, she was by now well armed and manned with veterans trained to cope with every eventuality, so that when a treasure ship, the
Nuestra Señora de Covadonga, was encountered off the Philippines on 20 June, the Spaniards struck her flag after a 90-minute engagement. Her treasure was so enormous that it made Anson wealthy for life, and the voyage had proved to be the most successful of its kind since
Drake's circumnavigation in the
Golden Hinde.
When Anson returned home the rest of his career was an uninterrupted success story. He became a
flag officer in 1745, and two years later, when cruising off Cape Finisterre, he defeated a French squadron which was protecting an outward-bound
convoy to Canada. He captured four
ships of the line and two
frigates, and took seven merchantmen, thus adding considerably to his wealth by his share of the
prize money. He was made a peer, and in 1748 married Lady Elizabeth Yorke, daughter of the Lord Chancellor. From then on, Anson moved freely in the corridors of power, enjoying two separate spells as First Lord of the
Admiralty.
At the Admiralty he proved a determined reformer, notably improving the
dockyards, which for generations had been a source of waste, inefficiency, and corruption; replacing the existing marine regiments with a corps of
marines; establishing the system of giving men-of-war a
rate; and drawing up a new code of the
Articles of War. The officers he trained were some of the most notable of their era, and it was in his time that a regular uniform was laid down for naval officers, though it was many years before the bulk of them readily conformed to it.
Bibliography
Le Fevre, P., and Harding, R. (eds.), Precursors of Nelson: British Admirals of the 18th Century (2000).
Williams, G. , The Prize of All the Oceans (2000).
