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Adm. Lord Mountevans
ADMIRAL EDWARD RATCLIFFE GARTH RUSSELL EVANS, 1ST BARON MOUNTEVANS KCB, DSO, SGM (28 October 1880 - 20 August 1957), known as “Teddy” Evans, was a British naval officer and Antarctic explorer.
Sec...view moreADMIRAL EDWARD RATCLIFFE GARTH RUSSELL EVANS, 1ST BARON MOUNTEVANS KCB, DSO, SGM (28 October 1880 - 20 August 1957), known as “Teddy” Evans, was a British naval officer and Antarctic explorer.
Seconded from the Navy to the Discovery Expedition of the Antarctic in 1901-04, he served on the crew of the relief ship when he was offered the post of second-in-command on Robert Falcon Scott’s ill-fated expedition to the South Pole in 1910-1913, as captain of the expedition ship Terra Nova. Mountevans accompanied Scott to within 150 miles of the Pole, but owing to illness narrowly survived the return journey.
He then toured the country giving lectures before returning to naval duties as a commander in 1914. He spent WWI as a destroyer captain, becoming famous as “Evans of the Broke” after the Battle of Dover Strait in 1917. He commanded a cruiser at Hong Kong in 1921-22 and was awarded a medal for his role in rescuing passengers from the wrecked-vessel Hong Moh.
He then spent several years commanding the Home Fisheries Protection Squadron before being given command of the modern battlecruiser HMS Repulse. He later commanded the Australian Squadron and the Africa Station before becoming Commander-in-Chief, The Nore, one of the Navy’s senior Home Commands. In early 1939 he was appointed Civil Defence Commissioner for London during the preparations for WWII. He officially retired from the Navy in 1941, but remained in a civil defence role throughout WWII.
He was raised to the peerage in 1945, sitting in the House of Lords as a Labour member.
Lord Mountevans died in Golå, Norway in 1957, aged 76.view less