William Milbourne James

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Sir William Milbourne James
22 Dec 1881 - 17 Aug 1973
The five year old James in Bubbles
Nickname	Bubbles
Place of birth	Hartley Wintney, Hampshire
Place of death	Elie, Fife
Allegiance	United Kingdom
Service/branch	Royal Navy
Years of service	1901 - 1944
Rank	Admiral
Commands held	HMS Curlew {1919 - 1921) Royal Naval College, Greenwich (1925 - 1926) Flag Captain, HMS Royal Sovereign (1 Nov 1926 - Jul 1927) Battlecruiser Squadron (18 Aug 1932 - Aug 1934) Commander-in-Chief, Portsmouth Naval Base (30 Jun 1939 - 1 Oct 1942) Chief of Naval Information (23 Feb 1943 - Jun 1944)
Battles/wars	World War I World War II
Awards	GCB (1 Jan 1944) KCB (1 Jan 1936) CB (12 Feb 1919) Légion d'honneur (27 May 1919)
Other work	Member of Parliament (MP), Portsmouth North (18 Feb 1943 -1945) Deputy Lieutenant, Surrey, (30 Jun 1953 - 1965) President, Union Jack Club (1955 - 1964)

Admiral Sir William Milbourne James GCB (22 December 1881-17 August 1973)^[1] was a British Naval commander, politician and author, most notable for his activities in the Naval Intelligence Division in both world wars.

Contents 1 Family 1.1 Bubbles 2 Naval career 3 Writings 4 References

[edit] Family

James was the son of Major WC James of the 16th Lancers and his wife Effie, daughter of the painter John Everett Millais. He was educated at Trinity College, Glenalmond and HMS Britannia.

[edit] Bubbles

As a child his grandfather, Millais, used him as a model in several of his paintings, most famously Bubbles, in which the five year old William is shown gazing enraptured at a bubble he has just blown. When the painting was used in an advertisement for Pears soap, it became famous. The image dogged James throughout his life, and he was regularly nicknamed "Bubbles".^[2]

[edit] Naval career

James pursued a career in the Navy, rising to hold a number of important positions. Following his service on the training ship HMS Britannia, he was promoted to sub-lieutenant in 1901 and lieutenant in 1902. He achieved the rank of commander in 1913. He served as executive officer aboard the battlecruiser HMS Queen Mary.

During the First World War he was flag officer on HMS Benbow from 1916 to 1917. Later in the war he assisted William Reginald Hall, the Director of Naval Intelligence, eventually becoming deputy director. Hall and James worked together in "Room 40" which decrypted a number of crucial enemy signals relating to the Battle of Jutland, the plans of Roger Casement and the Zimmerman Telegram. At one point James ran Room 40 on Hall's behalf. James related some of the events in his biography of Hall, published in 1955.^[3]

In the inter-war years, James first served in the China Station as commander of HMS Curlew and local chief of staff (1921-1922). From 1923. He was Deputy Director at the Royal Naval College, Greenwich and Director in 1925. In 1926 he returned as flag captain of HMS Royal Sovereign. There followed a series of other senior appointments, as Naval Assistant to the First Sea Lord; as Rear Admiral; as Chief of Staff, Atlantic Fleet; as Chief of Staff, Mediterranean Fleet.

In 1932 he took command of the Battlecruiser Squadron, which he controlled from HMS Hood. He was made Vice Admiral in 1933 and from 1935 to 1938 he was a Lord Commissioner of the Admiralty and Deputy Chief of the Naval Staff. He was honoured with a KCB.

From 1938 James was a full Admiral.

During World War II James served as Commander-in-Chief Portsmouth until 1942. He was then appointed as Chief of Naval Information, coordinating intelligence gathering.

James retired from the Navy in 1944. He was elected in 1943 as Conservative Member of Parliament for the constituency of Portsmouth North, which he held until 1945.

Following his retirement from public life, James was active in support for ventures relating to seafaring, supporting clubs such as the Elie and Earlsferry Sailing Club, which named their dingy Bubbles in his honour.^[4]

[edit] Writings

In addition to his biography of Hall, he published books and articles on other aspects of his wartime experiences, including an account of Winston Churchill's attitudes to naval affairs in Churchill by His Contemporaries. Other publications on naval matters included:

New battleship organisations and notes for Executive Officers (1916)
Songs of the sailor men (1916)
The British Navy in adversity : a study of the American War of Independence (1926)
Blue water and green fields (1939)
Admiral Sir William Fisher (1943)
The Portsmouth letters (1946)
The British Navies in the Second World War (1946)
The durable monument: Horation Nelson (1948)
The influence of sea power on the history of the British people (1948)
Old oak : the life of Sir John Jervis, Earl of Vincent (1950)
The sky was always blue (1951)
The eyes of the navy : a biographical study of Admiral Sir Reginald Hall (1955)
A great seaman : the life of Admiral of the Fleet Sir Henry Oliver (1956)

His most notable non-Naval publication was The Order of Release, the story of John Ruskin, Effie Gray and John Everett Millais told for the first time in their unpublished letters (1947), a collection of family letters detailing the romance between his grandparents. His grandmother Effie Gray had been married to John Ruskin when she fell in love with Millais. Her first marriage was annulled, due to non-consummation. James was the first to publish the full details of these events and to vindicate his grandmother, whose victimisation by the Ruskin family he documented. James's book has been the inspiration for at least two plays.^[5]

[edit] References

Parliament of the United Kingdom
Preceded by Roger Keyes, 1st Baron Keyes	Member of Parliament for Portsmouth North 1943–1945	Succeeded by Donald Bruce, Baron Bruce of Donington