Transcript

Of

Admiral Sir Alexander Buller, G.C.K.B. [Obituary]

Trans. Devon. Assoc. vol. XXXVI, (1904), pp. 33-34.

by

J. Brooking-Rowe (Ed.)

Prepared by Michael Steer

The obituary was read at the Association’s July 1904 Teignmouth meeting. Admiral Buller was a senior Royal Navy officer who after a highly distinguished career was appointed Commander-in-Chief of Britain’s China Station. Buller had to respond at this time to the Far Eastern Crisis of 1897-8 when the Russian Pacific Fleet was threatening to attack the Korean port of Chemulpo to back up Russia’s demands for a peacetime coaling station at Deer Island.  He dispatched eight warships to Korea and the Russian forces promptly retreated. Following the succession of King Edward VII, he was among several retired admirals advanced to Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath (GCB) in the 1902 Coronation Honours list and received the insignia in an investiture on board the royal yacht Victoria and Albert outside Cowes on the day before the fleet review held there to mark the coronation. There is a detailed wikipedia entry for him. The obituary, from a copy of a rare and much sought-after journal can be downloaded from the Internet Archive. Google has sponsored the digitisation of books from several libraries. These books, on which copyright has expired, are available for free educational and research use, both as individual books and as full collections to aid researchers.

Admiral Sir Alexander Buller, G.C.K.B. Alexander Buller, of Erie Hall, Plympton, and Belmore House, West Cowes, was the second son of the Rev. Richard Buller, Rector of Lanreath, Liskeard, Cornwall, by his marriage with Elizabeth, daughter of John Hornby, of Hook, Titchfield, Shropshire. His grandfather, James Buller, a cadet of the House of Buller, of Morval, Cornwall, was a Lord of the Admiralty in 1811, and subsequently Clerk to the Privy Council till his death in 1830. Alexander Buller was born on ¬¬June 30th, 1834, and entered the Navy at the age of fourteen, He served as mate of the Royal Albert, in the Black Sea, during the Crimean War, was present at all the operations at Sevastopol, and, as lieutenant of the Princess Royal, took part in the attacks on Kertch and Yenikale, and in the capture of Kinburn. His lieutenant's commission was dated April 10th, 1855; and he was promoted to the rank of commander on June 10th, 1863; and to that of captain on December 10th, 1869, when in his thirty-sixth year. In the latter rank he commanded the Naval Brigade during the operations against the Malays in the Straits of Malacca in 1875-6, a service for which he received the Companionship of the Bath. He was a Naval Aide-de-camp to Queen Victoria from July, 1884, till his promotion to flag rank in January, 1887; Admiral-Superintendent of Malta Dockyard from January 10th, 1889, to February, 1892, in the March of which year he was promoted to the rank of Vice-Admiral. He was Commander-in-Chief on the China Station from 1895 to 1897; was promoted to Admirals rank in December of the latter year; and retired in 1899. Sir Alexander, who received the Knight Commandership of the Bath in May, 1896, and the Grand Cross of the same Order in June, 1902, held the Royal Humane Society's medal, awarded for assisting to rescue two seamen who fell overboard from the main rigging of the Edgar, at Queenstown, where he was then serving as a lieutenant. Sir Alexander married, in 1870, Emily Mary, daughter of Mr. Henry Tritton, of Beddington. He joined the Association in 1887, when it met at Plympton, and he took much interest in the proceedings and assisted in the reception. On 3rd October, 1903, while hunting with the Devon and Somerset staghounds, in the neighbourhood of Exford, crossing some peaty, swampy ground, near Brendon, he was taken ill and died immediately, in the presence of one or two members of the Hunt, from heart failure. He was buried at Plympton St. Maurice, 10th October, 1903. Sir Alexander was well known and esteemed throughout Devon, and his genial presence will be long missed in the place of his residence and generally in the south of the county.