John Colomb

Sir John Charles Ready Colomb, KCMG (1 May 1838 – 27 May 1909) was a British naval strategist.

He was born in Onchan, Isle of Man, the son of General George Thomas Colomb, and was the younger brother of British Vice-Admiral Philip Howard Colomb. He was educated privately, and entered the Royal Naval College from which he passed in 1854 into the Royal Marine Artillery. After being variously employed with the Navy, Army, Militia, and Volunteers he retired in 1869 with the rank of Captain. He thenceforth devoted himself to the study of naval and military problems, on which he had already published some essays.

His books on Colonial Defence and Colonial Opinions (1873), The Defence of Great and Greater Britain (1879), Naval Intelligence and the Protection of Commerce (1881), The Use and the Application of Marine Forces (1883), Imperial Federation: Naval and Military (1887), followed later by other similar works, made him well known among the rising school of Imperialists, and he was returned to parliament (1886-1892) as Conservative member for Bow and Bromley, and afterwards (1895-1906) for Great Yarmouth.

In 1887 he was created CMG, and in 1888 KCMG. He died in London on the 27th of May 1909. In Kerry, Ireland, he was a large landowner with 4,500 acres at Dromquinna and became a member of the Irish privy council (1903) and in 1906 sitting on the Royal Commission dealing with congested districts. He was also a Deputy Lieutenant and a Justice of Peace for the county; and in 1895 served as High Sheriff of Kerry. ^[1]

He married on 1 January, 1866, to Emily Anna, daughter of Robert Samuel Palmer, and widow of Charles Augustus Francis Paget (1832–64), Lieutenant of the Royal Navy and grandson of the first Marquess of Anglesey. They had one son, Rupert Palmer Colomb (1868–1955), and two daughters, Laura Olivia and Gwendaline Rose Emily.^[2][3]

References

•  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed (1911). Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. 
• Columb, J.C.R., The Defense of Great and Greater Britain: Sketches of Its Naval, Military and Political Aspects, E. Stanford, 1880, 264 pages.
• d'Egville, Howard, Imperial Defence and Closer Union: A Short Record of the Life Work of Sir John Colomb and of the Movement Toward Imperial Organization, London, 1913.
• Schurman, D. M., The Education of a Navy: The Development of British Naval Strategic Thought 1867-1914, London, 1965, pp. 16-35.
• Kennedy, Greg, Neilson, Keith and Schurman, D.M., eds., Far-Flung Lines: Essays on Imperial Defence in Honour of Donald Mackenzie Schurman, London: Frank Cass, 1997, pp. 31-34.
• Gat, Azar, A History of Military Thought Oxford University Press, 2002, pp. 474-477.
• Hobson, Rolf, Imperialism at Sea, Brill. 2002. pp. 87-90.
• Leigh Rayment's Historical List of MPs

External links

• Works written by or about John Charles Ready Colomb at Wikisource
• Hansard 1803–2005: contributions in Parliament by John Colomb