Admiral Admiral is one of the highest ranks in some navies. In the Commonwealth nations and the United States, a "full" admiral is equivalent to a "full" general in the army or the air force, and is above vice admiral and below admiral of the fleet, ...

Andrew Kennedy Bickford CMG (16 July 1844 – 9 October 1927) was a

Royal Navy The Royal Navy (RN) is the United Kingdom's naval warfare force. Although warships were used by English and Scottish kings from the early medieval period, the first major maritime engagements were fought in the Hundred Years' War against F ...

officer who went on to be Commander-in-Chief, Pacific Station.

Early life

Bickford was educated at the South Devon Collegiate School and

Stubbington House School Stubbington House School was founded in 1841 as a boys' preparatory school, originally located in the Hampshire village of Stubbington, around from the Solent. Stubbington House School was known by the sobriquet "the cradle of the Navy". The sc ...

Naval career

Bickford joined the

in 1858 and took part in the action involving the ''Huáscar'' in 1877.Naval & Military Museum
He commanded HMS ''Thalia'' during the

Anglo-Egyptian War The British conquest of Egypt (1882), also known as Anglo-Egyptian War (), occurred in 1882 between Egyptian and Sudanese forces under Ahmed ‘Urabi and the United Kingdom. It ended a nationalist uprising against the Khedive Tewfik Pasha. It ...

of 1882 and became Commander-in-Chief, Pacific Station in 1900. His flagship in the Pacific was HMS ''Warspite'' until March 1902, when he hoisted his flag on board the first class cruiser HMS ''Grafton'', and ''Warspite'' returned home. Promoted to vice admiral in 1904 and to full Admiral in 1908, he retired later that year.

Legacy

The Bickford Tower erected at

Esquimalt, British Columbia The Township of Esquimalt is a municipality at the southern tip of Vancouver Island, in British Columbia, Canada. It is bordered to the east by the provincial capital, Victoria, to the south by the Strait of Juan de Fuca, to the west by Esquim ...

for signalling purposes in 1901 is called after him.

Family

Bickford married Kathleen Dore on 16 April 1868 in the parish church of Queenstown (Cobh). She was the daughter of Dr. Patrick Dore of Skibbereen who had died in 1847 from inflammation of the lung during the Irish famine. The mortality rate amongst physicians in Ireland at this time was in the order of 25%, due to the outbreak of deadly infectious diseases contracted by many of the weakened famine victims. Kathleen's mother, Catherine Power, was sister of

Maurice Power Maurice Power (14 May 1811 – 28 December 1870) was an Anglo-Irish politician who served as member of parliament for List of United Kingdom by-elections (1832–47), County Cork (1847–1852) and as List of colonial governors of Saint Lucia, L ...

, Member of Parliament for Cork 1847–1852. Bickford died at his home in

Hove Hove is a seaside resort and one of the two main parts of the city of Brighton and Hove, along with Brighton in East Sussex, England. Originally a "small but ancient fishing village" surrounded by open farmland, it grew rapidly in the 19th cen ...

on 9 October 1927.

Early life

Naval career

Legacy

Family

References

Further reading