Henry Boyle Townshend Somerville


Vice-Admiral Henry Boyle Townshend Somerville CMG, generally known as Boyle Somerville, was an Irishman who served in the Royal Navy. He was a maritime author, as well as publishing on ethnography and archaeology. He was shot dead by the IRA.

Biography

Boyle Somerville was born at Castletownshend, Co. Cork. His father was Thomas Henry Somerville and his mother was Adelaide Eliza Coghill. Somerville joined the Royal Navy as a cadet in 1877. His first service was in S. America in 1880, and then in the first Egyptian war in 1882. He then spent four years on the China Station. He trained as a Hydrographic Surveyor, and as a Lieutenant worked on the surveys of the Queensland coast and the New Hebrides, now Vanuata, in the South Pacific,. While in Vanuata he carried out ethnographical work, which was published in 1894. In 1893-4 he was surveying New Georgia in the Solomon Islands, with, and published an account of the islands and its peoples. He built a significant collection of ethnographic artifacts from the Solomon Islands which is now in the Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford. In 1895, working on the survey of Tonga also on Penguin, he took the opportunity to visit Niuafo'ou, and published an early description of the island.
He was promoted to Commander on 31 December 1901, and the following year was posted to the Hydrographic Department for temporary service. He surveyed the Persian Gulf in 1902, and Ceylon and the Indian ocean between 1904 and 1907 with. In the summer of 1905, Somerville and HMS Sealark were assigned to the Indian Ocean expedition sponsored by the Percy Sladen Trust, which was led by J. Stanley Gardiner. Somerville took part in the scientific work of the expedition, as well as making oceanographic and magnetic observations. From 1908-1914 he surveyed British coastal waters in. He was promoted to Captain in 1912 and Vice Admiral on 1 August 1919. G.S. Ritchie, Hydrographer of the Navy from 1966-71, described him as a "surveyor of distinction". Shortly before World War I he developed a steam-operated sounding machine for determining ocean depth from a ship that was under way.
stones on the Isle of Lewis, Scotland. In 1908, while surveying in British waters, he read a book suggesting stone circles and standing stones might have astronomical significance. He thereafter devoted much of his time to surveying such monuments in Britain, Ireland and elsewhere, and became a recognised expert in the field of archaeoastronomy. He contributed papers to the Journal of the British Astronomical Association and Antiquity. His archaeological studies have been reviewed by Lacey
During World War I he served in the North Atlantic Patrol from 1914-1916, commanding HMS Victorian,, and. In 1917 he was based in Halifax, Nova Scotia, commanding on Atlantic convoy support.. As part of the late summer 1917 reorganisation of the burgeoning British Secret Intelligence Service, led by Mansfield Smith-Cumming and his de facto deputy, Colonel Freddie Browning, Somerville was appointed as 'officer in charge of the Naval Section within the Secret Service Bureau.' This was the first career naval officer posting to the Secret Service. In February 1919, Somerville wrote a review setting out a number of basic principles for service and encouraging the development of specialist intelligence technical skills within the navy for intelligence gathering and analysis. Also in February 1919, he was appointed a Companion of the Order of St Michael and St George "in recognition of valuable services during the war".
He retired on 2 August 1919. After his retirement he returned to the family home at Castletownshend, near Cork in Ireland. During his retirement He continued to work for the Admiralty, in the Hydrographic Department and on the Tidal Committee, and published several books including Ocean Passages for the World in 1923. He also published articles describing his surveying experiences in Blackwood's Magazine. He continued to be active in archaeology, publishing his last paper in 1931.
On 24 March 1936 he was killed when four men burst into the house and fired a revolver. IRA chief of staff Tom Barry was involved in the shooting. The Vice-Admiral was targeted for allegedly recruiting local men to join the Royal Navy, a claim the family rejected. His family said he did not recruit anyone but merely gave references to young people who called to the family door and asked for a reference. The admiral was Irish language speaker, and he was a supporter of the nationalist Home Rule movement. The men who shot him left a note saying he was shot because he was recruiting for the British Army, and this led to suspicions that the target was in fact his British Army brother that lived close by, and was more prominent and a much more likely target. IRA leader Tom Barry stated in an interview in later years that the shooting was a mistake in that he was only meant to have been taken hostage.
He was the younger brother of the novelist and artist, Edith Somerville, who finished his biography of William Mariner for its posthumous publication.

Published works

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