Rear Admiral John Saumarez Dumaresq ( ;G.M. Miller, ''BBC Pronouncing Dictionary of British Names'' (London: Oxford UP, 1971), p. 48. 26 October 1873 – 22 July 1922) was an officer in the

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 ...

. He served during the

First World War World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

but is most remembered as an inventor, for development of the device named after him, the

Dumaresq The Dumaresq is a mechanical calculating device invented around 1902 by Lieutenant John Dumaresq of the Royal Navy. It is an analogue computer that relates vital variables of the fire control problem to the movement of one's own ship and that ...

, which helped users calculate the rate at which the range to an enemy ship was changing over time. He was the first Australian born officer to command the Australian Fleet.

Early life

Dumaresq was the grandson of a British colonial settler,

William Dumaresq William John Dumaresq (25 February 1793 – 9 November 1868) was an English-born military officer, civil engineer, landholder and early Australian politician. He is associated with settler colonisation of the areas around Scone, New South Wa ...

, who had migrated to Australia, in 1825, accompanying the Governor of New South Wales,

Ralph Darling General Sir Ralph Darling, GCH (1772 – 2 April 1858) was a British Army officer who served as Governor of New South Wales from 1825 to 1831. He is popularly described as a tyrant, accused of torturing prisoners and banning theatrical entertai ...

, who was married to his sister,

Eliza ELIZA is an early natural language processing computer program created from 1964 to 1966 at the MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory by Joseph Weizenbaum. Created to demonstrate the superficiality of communication between humans and machines, ...

. He was born at Rose Bay, New South Wales, but left Australia as an infant. In 1907, he married Christian Elizabeth Louisa Dalrymple.

Naval career

Dumaresq lived in England from age two and became a naval cadet at HMS ''Britannia'' in 1886. He became interested in torpedoes and gunnery and introduced a number of innovations. In 1904 he was promoted to commander. In 1908 he commanded a flotilla escorting King Edward VII on a tour of Russia and was appointed a

Member of the Royal Victorian Order The Royal Victorian Order (french: Ordre royal de Victoria) is a dynastic order of knighthood established in 1896 by Queen Victoria. It recognises distinguished personal service to the British monarch, Canadian monarch, Australian monarch, o ...

from the King and awarded the

Order of Saint Catherine The Imperial Order of Saint Catherine (russian: Императорский Орден Святой Екатерины) was an award of Imperial Russia. Instituted on 24 November 1714 by Peter the Great on the occasion of his marriage to Catherine ...

from the Tsar. On 30 June 1910 he was promoted to captain, working on

fire control Fire control is the practice of reducing the heat output of a fire, reducing the area over which the fire exists, or suppressing or extinguishing the fire by depriving it of fuel, oxygen, or heat (see fire triangle). Fire prevention and control i ...

equipment at the Royal Navy war college at Portsmouth. In 1913, Dumaresq became captain of and took part in the Battle of Jutland. He was appointed a Companion of the Order of the Bath for his part in the battle In February 1917, Dumaresq was appointed commanding officer of , which was serving as part of the

Grand Fleet The Grand Fleet was the main battlefleet of the Royal Navy during the First World War. It was established in August 1914 and disbanded in April 1919. Its main base was Scapa Flow in the Orkney Islands. History Formed in August 1914 from the F ...

in the

North Sea The North Sea lies between Great Britain, Norway, Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium. An epeiric sea, epeiric sea on the European continental shelf, it connects to the Atlantic Ocean through the English Channel in the south and the ...

. Shortly afterwards, the ship and its accompanying patrol were involved in an attack by a

Zeppelin A Zeppelin is a type of rigid airship named after the German inventor Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin () who pioneered rigid airship development at the beginning of the 20th century. Zeppelin's notions were first formulated in 1874Eckener 1938, pp ...

. Dumaresq attempted to trap the Zeppelin by ordering the accompanying ships to disperse, leaving the Zeppelin attempting to bomb his ship and coming closer, and then ordering them back forming a ring surrounding the enemy. The Zeppelin remained too high, meaning the ships' anti-aircraft guns could not reach it, but also the Zeppelin could not aim reliably enough to drop bombs on the ships below. Dumaresq became convinced of the need for aircraft to operate from ships and a platform to his design was installed on ''Sydney'' in October 1917 for the purpose of launching an aeroplane. During an engagement with enemy destroyers at Heligoland Bight on 1 June 1918, the aircraft was used in action to drive off two attacking German aeroplanes, shooting down one. Dumaresq was appointed Commodore Commanding the Australian Fleet on 22 March 1919, as the first Australian born officer to do so. His flagship then became . Ships of the Australian navy had been distributed around the world during the war, but now returned to Australian waters based at Sydney. His period of command was marked by disagreement with the Australian government over expenditure upon the navy. In 1920 he was advanced to

Commander of the Royal Victorian Order The Royal Victorian Order (french: Ordre royal de Victoria) is a dynastic order of knighthood established in 1896 by Queen Victoria. It recognises distinguished personal service to the British monarch, Canadian monarch, Australian monarch, o ...

and in June 1921 was promoted to rear admiral. In April 1922, Dumaresq was posted back to the Royal Navy. On the return journey he contracted pneumonia, and died in the US Military Hospital in

Manila Manila ( , ; fil, Maynila, ), officially the City of Manila ( fil, Lungsod ng Maynila, ), is the capital of the Philippines, and its second-most populous city. It is highly urbanized and, as of 2019, was the world's most densely populate ...

on 22 July.

References

External links

John Dumaresq
Australian Dictionary of Biography

GWPDA biography * {{DEFAULTSORT:Dumaresq, John Saumarez 1873 births 1922 deaths Commanders of the Royal Victorian Order Companions of the Order of the Bath Royal Australian Navy admirals Royal Navy rear admirals Royal Navy officers of World War I Military personnel from New South Wales