Ronald Arthur Hopwood
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Ronald Arthur Hopwood CB |
|
|---|---|
| Born |
7 December 1868 London, England |
| Died | 28 December 1949 (aged 81) London, England |
| Allegiance |
 United Kingdom
|
| Service/branch |
 Royal Navy
|
| Years of service | 1882–1919 |
| Rank | Rear admiral |
| Commands held | |
| Battles/wars | First World War |
| Awards | Companion of the Order of the Bath |
| Other work | Poet, lecturer, author |
| Signature |  |
Rear Admiral Ronald Arthur Hopwood CB (1868–1949) was a British naval officer and poet. He began his career in 1882 with the Royal Navy as a gunnery officer, completed it in 1919 as a rear admiral, and was acclaimed in 1941 as poet laureate of the Royal Navy by Time. As an author, Admiral Hopwood's first work was his poem The Laws of the Navy, published in 1896 when he was a lieutenant. With its good-natured military advice making it popular within both the Royal and U.S. navies,Time gives it "precedence among Navy men even over Kipling's If" and goes on to quote Hopwood's new poem Secret Orders in its entirety. The last lines of Secret Orders, written in appreciation of the Destroyers for Bases Agreement (a predecessor to Lend Lease), harken to the Second World War bond between the two navies.
Hopwood was born on 7 December 1868 as the third son of John Turner Hopwood and he was educated at Cheam School.
Hopwood entered the Royal Navy onboard HMS Prince of Wales as a naval cadet in 1882, and became a lieutenant in 1890. After serving in the gunboat Sparrow on the Cape and West Africa Station, he joined HMS Excellent in 1891 to specialize in gunnery, and on qualifying in 1893 was appointed to the junior staff in the HM Gunnery School, HMNB Devonport. He was gunnery officer first of the cruiser Blake in the English Channel, and then of the battleship Goliath in China. Hopwood returned to the Gunnery School, joining the senior staff.
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