Quick Facts
Biography
- For the Army officer of the same name, see Edward Fanshawe (British Army officer)
Admiral Sir Edward Gennys Fanshawe, GCB (27 November 1814 – 21 October 1906) was a Royal Navy officer who went on to be Commander-in-Chief, Portsmouth.
Naval career
Born the eldest surviving son of General Sir Edward Fanshawe, and the nephew of Admiral Sir Arthur Fanshawe, Fanshawe was educated at the Royal Naval Academy, Portsmouth where he came second from the top in a very talented year and was commended for both his artistic and writing ability. Fanshawe joined the Royal Navy in 1828. During the Oriental Crisis of 1840 he took part in the capture of Acre. He was subsequently given command of HMS Cruiser and then HMS Daphne.
He took part in the Crimean War as captain of HMS Cossack. Later he commanded HMS Hastings, HMS Centurion and then HMS Trafalgar. He suffered some health problems from the 1850s, which curtailed his Mediterranean command of HMS Centurion.
He was made Superintendent of Chatham Dockyard in 1861, Third Naval Lord in 1865 and Superintendent of Malta Dockyard in 1868. He went on to be Commander-in-Chief, North American Station in 1870, Admiral President of the Royal Naval College, Greenwich in 1875 and Commander-in-Chief, Portsmouth in 1878. He retired in 1879.
From the early 1850s he and his family lived at Rutland Gate in London. He later moved to 63 Eaton Square and finally to 75 Cromwell Road in Kensington, where he died on Trafalgar Day 1906.
Family
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Fanshawe's marriage to Jane Cardwell took place in early 1843; she was the sister of Edward (later Lord) Cardwell, a notable politician and, as Secretary of State for War under William Gladstone in the 1860s, instigator of the 'Cardwell Reforms' of the British Army.
They had four sons and a daughter, including:
- Lieutenant-Colonel Edward Cardwell Fanshawe, of the Royal Engineers, who married in 1900 Alice Drew, daughter of Colonel George Drew, CB.
- Admiral of the Fleet Sir Arthur Dalrymple Fanshawe (1847–1936), whose son Guy Dalrymple Fanshawe also became a Royal Naval Captain.
- Alice Fanshawe