Page:Dictionary of National Biography, Third Supplement.djvu/583

  of the torpedo arm had shaken the principles upon which battle tactics had hitherto been based, and simultaneously British naval strategy underwent a complete revolution with the disappearance of France as a maritime rival, and the rapid growth of German naval power. Warrender commanded squadrons in all the fleet manœuvres designed to test the new situation, and was partly responsible for the new rules of naval warfare which were evolved from them.

In May 1914 he was sent to Kiel, as commander of the second battle squadron, for the celebrations of the Kaiser's birthday. Nobody realized at the moment the near approach of war; but a feeling of tension was general in naval circles, and in any case the visit had a deep political significance. Of all the naval officers of his day Warrender was perhaps the most fitted to undertake the duty of making a diplomatic naval visit to a rival power. He made a deep impression upon his hosts, and the German liaison officer attached to the British flagship has left a vivid picture of his courtesy and tact [Georg von Hase, Zwei Weissen Völker, 1920].

In August 1914 Admiral Warrender was in command of the second battle squadron of the grand fleet, and in December became the leading figure in one of the most remarkable operations of the War. On the 14th of that month the Admiralty became aware that the Germans intended to attack the East coast, and, assuming on purely negative evidence that the high seas fleet was not going to support the movement, detached a force of battleships and cruisers to cut off the raiders. Admiral Warrender, in command of this intercepting force, was thus left to operate in the middle of the North Sea without any possibility of being supported by the grand fleet in an emergency. As a matter of fact the high seas fleet did come out, and, but for Admiral von Ingenohl's timid leadership, the British might have suffered disaster. The German raiders, operating in advance of the high seas fleet, bombarded Scarborough, Whitby, and Hartlepool during the early morning of the 16th, and then made for home. In the meanwhile Warrender, after his destroyers had twice obtained contact with the advanced screen of the high seas fleet, got across the returning track of the raiders, and sent his faster force of battle cruisers in towards Scarborough. Unfortunately, his orders to press in to a position within sixty miles of the coast were not carried out; and the Germans escaped by a narrow margin. It would be hard to find an operation more pregnant with possibilities and dramatic changes. At six o'clock in the morning, Ingenohl had Warrender's force almost at his mercy; six hours later, all danger from the German high seas fleet had disappeared, and the utter destruction of the German raiders seemed certain; one hour after that, all the opposing forces engaged were steaming away from one another on diverging courses.

At the end of 1915 Admiral Warrender was promoted to the post of commander-in-chief at Plymouth. Throughout the year 1916 he watched the steady growth of the submarine campaign in the western approaches to the Channel, and was painfully conscious that no remedy or counter to it had yet been found. He realized quite clearly that a campaign of far greater intensity was inevitable; but he did not live to see it. On 6 December he laid down his command owing to ill-health, and died in London a month later (8 January 1917). Admiral Warrender, who succeeded to the baronetcy in 1901, married in 1894 Lady Ethel Maud Ashley, fifth daughter of the eighth Earl of Shaftesbury, and left two sons and one daughter.

 WATERLOW, ERNEST ALBERT (1850–1919), painter, born in London 24 May 1850, was the only son of Albert Crakell Waterlow, lithographer, of London, by his wife, Maria, daughter of James Corss. Sir Sydney Hedley Waterlow [q.v.], lord-mayor of London in 1872–1873, was his uncle. After education at Eltham collegiate school and Heidelberg, Ernest Waterlow began his art studies at Ouchy, near Lausanne, and subsequently (1867) continued them at the school of art in London kept by Francis Stephen Cary [q.v.]. In 1872 he entered the Royal Academy Schools, where, in the next year, he gained the Turner gold medal for landscape-painting with his picture ‘A Land Storm’. A constant exhibitor at Burlington House from 1872 onwards, Waterlow was also a frequent contributor to the exhibitions of the Royal Society of Painters in Water Colours, of which he was elected associate in 1880, member in 1894, and president in 1897, holding that office until 1914. He was also a member of the ‘Society of Six’, an association of landscape painters, which in 1896 held its first exhibition at the Old Dudley Gallery. He was elected A.R.A. in 1890 and R.A. in 1903; his diploma 557