Admiral of the Fleet Jellicoe Earl Jellicoe of Scapa Presentation Portrait, 1920

Admiral of the Fleet  Sir John Rushworth Jellicoe, 1st Earl Jellicoe of Scapa, O.M., G.C.B., G.C.V.O., R.N. (1859-1935) became well known to the public at large through his death defying exploits ashore when Captain of the battleship H.M.S. Centurion during the relief of the Peking legations in 1900; his attempt to save the lives of the crew of a Glasgow steamer when a lieutenant in H.M.S. Monarch (for which he was awarded the Board of Trades’s Sea Gallantry Medal), and for the subsequent loss of this award in a well publicised naval catastrophe - the sinking of H.M.S. Victoria on July 22, 1893, after a collision with H.M.S. Camperdown in the Mediterranean. He was later one of the most prominent public figures of First World War as the Commander-in-Chief of the Grand Fleet from 1914 to 1916. 

In May 1916 he commanded the Grand Fleet in the sea battle off Jutland that was to prove history's largest (and only major) clash of dreadnoughts. His handling of the fleet however remains controversial, with some historians describing Jellicoe’s approach as too cautious and other historians faulting the battlecruiser commander, Admiral David Beatty for tactical errors. Jellicoe certainly made no significant mistakes and correctly deployed the Grand Fleet with a the classic naval warfare tactic of ‘crossing the T’ of the German High Seas Fleet as it appeared. After suffering heavy shell damage, the enemy fleet turned 180 degrees and fled the battle area. Jellicoe was criticised for not pursuing but it is questionable whether this would have been sensible, given the risk of German torpedo attacks. At the time the British public were disappointed that the Royal Navy had not won a victory on the scale of the Trafalgar. Winston Churchill later described Jellicoe later as 'the only man on either side who could lose the war in an afternoon'—essentially hinting that Jellicoe's decision to prefer caution was strategically correct.