Exhibit

     Elliot, Sir George Augustus 1813-1901, admiral, born at Calcutta on 25 Sept. 1813, was the eldest son of Admiral Sir George Elliot [qv.] by his wife Eliza Cecilia, daughter of James Ness of Osgodby, Yorkshire. Entering the navy in November 1827, he was made lieutenant on 12 Nov. 1834. For the next three years he was in the Astræa with Lord Edward Russell [qv.] on the South American station, and on 15 Jan. 1838 was promoted to the command of the Columbine brig, in which he served on the Cape and West Coast station, under the orders of his father, for two years, with remarkable success, capturing six slavers, two of them sixty miles up the Congo. In February 1840 he went on to China in company with his father, and on 3 June was promoted, on a death vacancy, to be captain of the Volage, in which in the following year he returned to England, his father, who was invalided, going with him as a passenger. From 1843 to 1846 he commanded the Eurydice frigate on the North American station, and after a prolonged spell of half-pay was appointed in December 1849 to the Phaeton frigate, which under his command attained a reputation as one of the smartest frigates in the service, and is even now remembered by the prints of the Channel fleet with the commodore in command making the signal Well done, Phaeton! in commendation of a particularly smart piece of work in picking up a man who had fallen overboard (11 Aug. 1850). Early in 1853 the Phaeton was paid off, and in January 1854 Elliot commissioned the James Watt, one of the first of the screw line-of-battle ships, which he commanded in the Baltic during the campaigns of 1854 and 1855. On 24 Feb. 1858 he became rear-admiral, and was then captain of the fleet to Sir Charles Fremantle, commanding the Channel squadron. In 1861 he was a member of a royal commission on national defences, and from 1863 to 1865 was superintendent of Portsmouth dockyard. On 12 Sept. he became vice-admiral, and in the following year was repeatedly on royal commissions on naval questions, gunnery, tactics, boilers, ship-design, &c. In 1870 he reached the rank of admiral; and in 1874 was elected conservative M.P. for Chatham; but he resigned his seat in the following year on being appointed commander-in-chief at Portsmouth. On 2 June 1877 he was nominated a K.C.B., and the following year, 26 Sept., he was placed on the retired list. Continuing to occupy himself with the study of naval questions, he published in 1885 A Treatise on Future Naval Battles and how to fight them. He died in London on 13 December 1901. He married in 1842 Hersey, only daughter of Colonel Wauchope of Niddrie, Midlothian, and left issue.

Sources:
     Royal Navy Lists
     O'Byrne's Naval Biographical Dictionary
     Who's Who
     The Times, 14 Dec. 1901
     information from the family.

Contributor: J. K. L. [John Knox Laughton]

Published: 1912