Captain HMS Princess Margaret Jul 1915

[Peter Harvey]

Any help with the addressee on this cover would be appreciated.

July 1915 to HMS Princess Margaret addressed to Capt Shirley_______ I can not make out this name. At this time the ship was fully engaged in minelaying, but I can not find any reference to the Captains name prior to July 1915, so no leads with this name. Any help appreciated.

Peter

[Frank Schofield]

Peter

Like you I cannot make out the surname
BUT in my Oct 1915 Navy list the commanding officer of the Princess Margaret is Commander J.L. Longstaff he was appt on 9th Match 1915
I have been through the seniority lists of Captains in the RN in Oct but none with the Christian name of Shirley also tried hyponated Shirley-??
Bit of a mystery

Frank Schofield

[Tony Walker]

What about Litchfield as the surname ?

Tony

[Alan Baker]

I think this is Captain (later Rear Admiral) Frederick Shirley Litchfield-Speer, CMG, DSO. According to Wiki he was Captain of HMS Princess Margaret from June 1915 - January 1916. He was later Commander of HMS Agamemnon. He died in 1922, aged 49.

It appears the family had several RN connections. Both his son and grandson served at various stages. Frederick added the name Speer to his surname by Royal Licence in 1915 (to conform with the will of his wife's grandfather) but the family dropped it in the 1930s.

The family lived at some point in the Manor House, Thames Ditton, Surrey, which is about half a mile from the primary school I went to until 1960. Small world!

[Nick Colley]

Yes, that's the chap. Now, April 1916 Navy List: he was NOT the captain of HMS Princess Margaret - he is listed as  'borne as additional' - along with an Asst.Paymaster and a Signal Boatswain.

If you look at http://www.dreadnoughtproject.org/tfs/index.php/H.M.S._Princess_Margaret_(1914), you'll see she was the flagship of the Minelayer Squadron, so I suspect our chap was the senior officer of the squadron, sufficiently senior to have the actual ship commanded by an officer of a rank subordinate to Captain (Commander Lockhart Leith in the April 1916 List).

chrs
N

[Nick Colley]

Actually, looking at the date on the cover, at that time Captain Litchfield WAS the CO of HMS Princess Margaret.

Lockhart Leith's appointment dates from 2nd January 1916.

chrs
N

[Peter Harvey]

Nick, Alan, Tony thank you for your help with this, many hands make light work of this investigation. Without the Internet this is one of those covers that would have sat on the desk for years (its a large desk).

Thanks. Peter