Up for auction a VERY RARE! "First Lord of the Admiralty" Eric Geddes Hand Signed 3X4 Card.
ES-5070
Sir Eric Campbell Geddes GCB GBE PC (26
September 1875 – 22 June 1937) was a British businessman and Conservative politician.
With a background in railways, he served as head of Military Transportation on
the Western Front, with the rank of major-general. He then served as First Lord
of the Admiralty (with the rank of vice-admiral, despite its
being a political position) between 1917 and 1919. He then served as the
first Minister of Transport between
1919 and 1921, in which position he was responsible for the deep public
spending cuts known as the "Geddes Axe". Born in British India, Geddes was a son of Auckland Campbell Geddes,
of Edinburgh, Scotland. Among his siblings were Dr. Mona Chalmers Watson and Auckland Geddes, 1st Baron
Geddes. He was educated at Oxford Military College and Merchiston Castle School,
Edinburgh, until asked to leave. Geddes then spent 2 1⁄2 years drifting
between jobs like lumberjack and steelworker in the United States, eventually becoming a
stationmaster for the Baltimore and Ohio
Railroad, rising to car-tracer. When he abruptly returned home, his elder sister
gave him a firm talking-to; late in 1895 he was sent to India for a minor job
in estate management, where he built light railways before moving to the
Rohilkund and Kumaon railway; he became superintendent in 1901. Returning
to England because of his wife's poor health, he joined the North-Eastern
Railway, and rose to be deputy general manager in 1911.
During the First World War Geddes
was one of the "men of push and go" brought into government service
by Minister of Munitions David Lloyd George. Made
responsible for small arms production, he established rational goals for
rifles, light and heavy machine guns, and production then soared, making many
more automatic weapons than the army had requested. Shell production was also
booming but these were not adequately getting filled with explosive, and so
Geddes was made responsible for them in December 1916; within six months the
number of filled shells increased tenfold to two million per week, and the filled
shells piled up on French docks. Lloyd George, now Minister of War, persuaded
Sir Douglas Haig, Commander of
the British
Expeditionary Force, to invite Geddes and his three-man team over
for two days in August 1916 to advise on transportation. Haig was so impressed
that the visit was extended to a month and then Geddes was appointed Director
General of Military Railways and Inspector-General of Transportation with the
rank of major general.
They got the ports and railways working efficiently and built light railways to
bring materials to the front. He was knighted in 1916 and appointed a Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath and Knight Grand Cross of the
Order of the British Empire in 1917. He was promoted to
inspector general of transportation in all theatres of war. The German U-boat campaign unleashed
unrestricted attacks in February 1917. As the British merchant fleet was
suffering, Lloyd George transferred Geddes to the Admiralty as Civilian Lord with the rank of vice-admiral. He was given
control of British shipbuilding, charged with making up for as many of the
losses as possible. He found the Admiralty in disarray and wrote to his
friend Field Marshal Haig about the lack of drive. On 19 June 1917 First Sea
Lord Jellicoe confessed
to the War Cabinet that they were losing. Haig and Geddes breakfasted with
Lloyd George to demand a new administration in the Admiralty. On 6 July 1917
Geddes, strongly recommended by Haig, returned to civilian life as First Lord
of the Admiralty. To serve he had to be a member of the House of Commons and
was elected in a by-election for Cambridge.
He was sworn into the Privy
Council the same month.[The Daily Telegraph's naval
correspondent, Sir Archibald Hurd, later wrote of Geddes and Lloyd George,
"No men more ignorant of naval affairs were ever associated together than
the Prime Minister and Geddes". Regardless of this deficiency he
infused the Admiralty with determined energy, encouraged innovation, openness
and initiative. Convoying was turning the tide. Geddes appointed the Belfast
shipbuilder Lord Pirrie as
controller-general of merchant shipbuilding, and brought William Henry Bragg into
the Admiralty to oversee antisubmarine science: they were working with the
French to develop sonar which was ready just when the
war ended. Jellicoe was replaced at the end of 1917. Convoys in home waters
lost only 1.25 percent of their ships, and 2,084,000 American soldiers reached
Europe; only 113 were lost to U-boats, despite the German Admiralty's boast
that they would destroy them all. At war's end the world supply of shipping was
larger than it had been at the outset, thanks to the growth of the Japanese and
American merchant fleets. It was a great Allied victory. Lloyd George's
evaluation was that Geddes was "... one of the most remarkable men which
the State called to its aid ..." He left the Admiralty in January
1919 and was made a Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath. Lloyd George then
asked him to organize a new Ministry of Transport. Until the bill setting up
this new office was passed in May 1919, he remained in the cabinet as minister without portfolio.
In May 1919 he was appointed the first Minister of Transport.
The new ministry was given control over railways, roads, canals and docks but
was criticized in both houses of parliament for giving in to nationalization
and for its large size. In the autumn of 1921 the handing back of the railways
from state control to the companies was being reviewed, which put the Ministry
of Transport under further pressure. Geddes had neither taste nor aptitude for
political infighting, he resigned in November 1921.
In
1921 Geddes chaired the Committee on National Expenditure which proposed heavy
cuts in public expenditure to match falling national income, the austerity
policy became known as the Geddes Axe. A notable feature of the recommendations involved
army cuts: in personnel by 50,000 men from 210,000; and in funding by 20
million pounds from an existing army estimates of 75 million.
When
enacted, the public expenditure cuts depressed the economy further. Geddes
resigned from the government and the Commons in 1922, becoming director
of Dunlop Rubber. From 1924
until his death he was chairman of Imperial Airways. Geddes' memorable quotation is: "We
shall squeeze the German lemon until the pips squeak!" which he introduced
in a stump speech before the election of 1918. It became a major rallying call
during the coalition's campaign.