Dictionary of National Biography, 1927 supplement/Laughton, John Knox
LAUGHTON, Sir JOHN KNOX (1830–1915), naval historian, was the second son and youngest child of James Laughton, of Liverpool (1777–1859), who, like his ancestors, was in times of peace a master mariner and in times of war captain of a privateer. James Laughton married Ann Potts, who came of yeoman stock in Cumberland; and before the birth of his younger son forsook the sea and took to Calvinism. The future historian was born in Liverpool 23 April 1830. He was educated at the Royal Institution School in that city and later proceeded to Caius College, Cambridge, where in 1852 he sat for the mathematical tripos and graduated as a wrangler. Almost as soon as he had taken his degree the outbreak of war with Russia suggested a career; and entering the royal navy as a naval instructor, he joined his first ship, the Royal George, 27 December 1853, and proceeded to the Baltic. His service here extended over 1854 and 1855; and in 1856, as the Crimean War came to an end, he was transferred to the Calcutta, flagship of the commander-in-chief in the Far East. During the second Chinese War he was present at the capture of the Canton defences (1856), the battle of Fatshan Creek (1857), and the capture of the Taku forts (1858). In these engagements he distinguished himself by his gallantry; while at the same time in pursuit of his ordinary duties he was laying the foundations of his success as a teacher. ‘Sir John taught so well,’ wrote Admiral Sir Edward Seymour in later years, ‘that of his pupils (in the Calcutta) at least seventeen got on the active list of captains and eight to that of flag officers—which from one ship I believe to be a record.’ For his services in the Baltic Laughton received the Crimean medal, and for the Chinese War the medal with clasps—a remarkable achievement for one whose status was that of a civilian. In 1859 he was appointed to the Algiers, and, while in the Mediterranean, specialized in the geography of the Holy Land, collecting as large a library on the subject as his cabin would hold. But his war experiences were over; and after serving in one or two other ships he came ashore for good, and in 1866 was transferred to the Royal Naval College, Portsmouth.
Here Laughton's pupils were half-pay captains and commanders; and, the educational fashions of the sailing-epoch being still in vogue, the chief subject he had to teach was meteorology, though to this was added, inter alia, marine surveying. There were no suitable text-books, and Laughton in his thorough fashion set himself to produce what was wanted. In 1870 he published his Physical Geography in its relation to the Prevailing Winds and Currents, and two years later his Treatise on Nautical Surveying. These works attracted attention outside the service, and led to his long and valued connexion with the Royal Meteorological Society, of which he was elected a fellow in 1873 and president in 1882.
In 1873 the Admiralty decided to convert Greenwich Hospital, the primary object of which had by then ceased to exist, into a university for the navy; and Laughton was promoted from Portsmouth to take charge of the department of meteorology and marine surveying. In 1876 he obtained permission to lecture on naval history. The subject had been utterly neglected in the service, and seemed outside the scope of the Greenwich curriculum, which hitherto had been purely technical. But from this time onward Laughton transferred his allegiance almost wholly to his new study, which he attacked in all its applications with his accustomed vigour. In 1885 he reached the retiring age, and the navy lost one of its best servants; but he did not at once cease to lecture on naval history at Greenwich; and he became a regular contributor to the Edinburgh Review and to this Dictionary (for which he wrote more than nine hundred lives). Within six months of retiring from the navy he was installed as professor of history at King's College, London, an appointment which enabled him to continue his pioneer work in search of naval documents, and to present the special knowledge thus obtained against the broader background of general history. Of the mass of documents examined by him, he edited Memoirs relating to Lord Torrington for the Camden Society in 1889; and, four years later, with the help of old shipmates who by now had risen to high positions of trust in the state, he succeeded in founding the Navy Records Society, for the publication of documents illustrating British maritime history. The first two volumes, Papers relating to the Defeat of the Spanish Armada (1894), he edited himself; and as first secretary of the society from 1893 to 1912, he not only directed all its proceedings, but with singular and ungrudging devotion put his own vast fund of knowledge entirely at the disposal of other labourers in the same field.
Late in life honours came thickly; he was elected an honorary fellow of Caius College in 1895; he received the honorary degrees of several universities; and in 1910 he was awarded the Chesney gold medal by the Royal United Service Institution. In 1907 he received knighthood; and in 1910, on his eightieth birthday, a number of admirers, including King George V, then Prince of Wales, and all the most celebrated admirals on the flag list, presented a testimonial and an address to the ‘pioneer in the revival of naval history’.
Laughton continued to lecture at King's College until the Christmas of 1914. He then complained of ill-health, and withdrew to his house at Wimbledon where his last days were spent. He died on 14 September 1915 in his eighty-sixth year. In accordance with his own request, his ashes were conveyed to sea by H.M.S. Conqueror and buried in forty fathoms at the mouth of the Thames ‘in the track of the incoming and outgoing ships’.
Laughton married, first, in 1866 Isabella, daughter of John Carr, of Dunfermline; and secondly, in 1886 Maria Josefa, daughter of Eugenio di Alberti, of Cadiz. He had by his first marriage one son and three daughters; and by his second, three sons and two daughters. He was a man of striking personal appearance with a tall, athletic figure and handsome features.
In addition to works already enumerated, Laughton wrote two volumes about Nelson, the Life (1895) and Nelson and his Companions in Arms (1896); edited the papers of Lord Barham (1907–1911); made a selection of Nelson letters from the unmanageable mass printed by Sir Harris Nicolas (1886); and collected some of his own fugitive tracts in a volume called Studies in Naval History (1887). But it is not from these books that the full value of Laughton's labour can be estimated. It is noteworthy that the publication of Captain A. T. Mahan's Influence of Sea Power upon History (1890) approximates in date to the foundation on this side of the Atlantic of the Navy Records Society. Mahan, admittedly one of Laughton's disciples, startled the world with his complete edifice of historical philosophy in the very hour in which Laughton dug down to the foundations on which alone such an edifice could be safely erected.
[Letters and Papers in possession of the family; Greenwich archives; personal knowledge.]