Sir Eustace Tennyson d'Eyncourt, Bt | |
---|---|
Born |
Hadley House, Barnet, Hertfordshire |
1 April 1868
Died | 1 February 1951 Westminster, London. (Death certificate) |
(aged 82)
Nationality | British |
Alma mater | Charterhouse |
Known for | Director of Naval Construction |
Notable awards | Fellow of the Royal Society |
Spouse | Janet Finlay (married about 1898, Scotland) |
Sir Eustace Henry William Tennyson d'Eyncourt, 1st Baronet, KCB, FRS (1 April 1868 – 1 February 1951) was a British naval architect and engineer. As Director of Naval Construction for the Royal Navy, 1912–1924, he was responsible for the design and construction of some of the most famous British warships. On 20 February 1915 Winston Churchill appointed him Chairman of the Landships Committee at the Admiralty, which was responsible for the design and production of the first military tanks to be used in warfare.
Tennyson D'Eyncourt was born in April 1868 at Hadley House, Barnet, Hertfordshire. He was the sixth child of Louis Charles Tennyson-D'Eyncourt (1814–1896) and his wife Sophia Yates (d. 1900). Through his father, he was a cousin of Alfred, Lord Tennyson.
He was educated at Charterhouse before becoming an apprentice in naval architecture at the shipyard of Armstrong, Whitworth & Co. in Elswick. By 1898, he was employed as a naval architect in Govan, Glasgow. There he met Janet Burns (née Watson Finlay), a widow whom he married that same year. She had two children from her first marriage, Kingsley and Gwyneth; together she and Tennyson D'Eyncourt would also have a son and daughter, Cecily and Gervais. Janet Tennyson D'Eyncourt died in 1909 when accompanying her husband on a business trip to Buenos Aires.
He received a number of awards and honours: in 1921, he was elected to the Fellowship of the Royal Society, in 1930, he was created a baronet, and was elected a fellow of the Royal Society of Arts in 1946. Tennyson D'Eyncourt was succeeded in the baronetcy by his son Gervais (d. 1971). His great-grandson is the writer Adam Nicolson.
As an apprentice at Armstrong, Whitworth & Co., Tennyson D'Eyncourt worked on the design of warships for the Austrian, Italian, Norwegian, Spanish, Portuguese, and Turkish governments. He joined the Fairfield Shipbuilding and Engineering Company of Govan in 1898, before returning to Armstrong, Whitworth & Co. in 1902. In 1904, he undertook consultancy work on the state of the Turkish navy which earned him the Order of the Medjidie, Third Class.