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Pictures courtesy of Bearnes, Hampton and Littlewood

Described as: 'A Boer War WWI group of five to '159137 R Cudmore PO 1 RN', Queen's South Africa Medal (HMS Perlorus), 1914-15 Star War Medal , Victory Medal and George V Royal Naval LSGC, (HMS Indus)'

Picture courtesy of Noonan's

CMG n/b, silver-gilt and enamels;
QSA (0) (Ch. Eng. A. R. Emdin. R.N. H.M.S. Pelorus.);
1914-15 Star (Eng. Capt. A. R. Emdin. R.N.);
British War and Victory Medals, with MID (Eng. R. Adml. A. R. Emdin. R.N.);
Coronation 1911;
France, Third Republic, Legion of Honour, Officer’s breast badge, gold and enamels

Archie Russell Emdin was born on 15 August 1865, the youngest son of William Henry Emdin of Bristol and his wife Mahala Edwards of Hereford. He was educated at the City of London School, King's College and the Royal Naval Colleges at Dartmouth and Keyham. As an engineer student he won workmanship prizes at Keyham, and whilst in the Marlborough he won the Newman Memorial Prize for 1887. He also passed a special course at the Royal Society of Naval Architects.
Emdin entered the Royal Navy as an Assistant Engineer on 1 July 1887 and on passing out from the college was appointed Engineer on 1 September 1889. In August 1890 he was appointed to the troopship Malabar, followed in November 1891 by an appointment to the Trafalgar, flagship of the Mediterranean Fleet. From March 1892 to 1898 he served in the Engineer-in-Chief's Department at the Admiralty.
Emdin was promoted to Chief Engineer in 1898 and appointed to Pelorus, a third-class cruiser launched in 1896. She had been constructed with boilers that had a new, small-tube system and was therefore subjected to a long series of tests. On completion of these tests she was assigned to the Channel Squadron and used mainly for despatch work. In May 1899 Emdin was 'specially recommended to the favourable notice of their lordships by the Vice Admiral commanding the Channel Squadron for careful supervision in detecting the leakage of boiler tubes (due to priming caused by defective condensers) that took place in H.M.S. Pelorus after leaving Cagliari Bay on 29th April 1899, and for prompt action in shutting off the boilers and thereby averting a serious catastrophe and probable loss of life.'

Following the outbreak of the Boer War the Channel Squadron was ordered to Gibraltar, and on 5 November 1899, Pelorus was ordered to join the Cape Squadron at Durban. She sailed down the east coast of Africa via Port Said, Aden, Zanzibar and Mozambique, arriving at Durban on 11 December. Hopes of the ship's company to take part in the campaign ashore were disappointed and Pelorus was assigned to the Delagoa Bay patrol, tasked with intercepting vessels approaching the Portuguese port to check for contraband. During her deployment with the Cape Squadron Pelorus boarded a total of 167 ships and sent in several with prize crews, but all were released. In February 1900 she put into Durban for repairs to her steering gear, then carried out a survey of the coastline from Durban to the Portuguese border. In April 1900 the ship was at Port Elizabeth when news of the relief of Mafeking was received; as part of the celebrations, the ship was illuminated and a naval brigade paraded through the town. In June 1900 Pelorus was ordered back to England; she proceeded via St Helena, Sierra Leone and Las Palmas, thereby completing a circumnavigation of Africa within a single year. She arrived in Plymouth on 19 July 1900, then sailed to Chatham where she was paid off.

Emdin was reappointed to the Engineer-in-Chief's Department from 1900 to 1905, and appointed Admiralty representative on the branch committee of the Engineering Standards Committee. He was awarded a letter of thanks from the Admiralty and promoted to Engineer Commander in July 1903. He served as senior assistant to the Engineer Manager, Devonport Dockyard, from 1906 to 1909. In August 1909 he was appointed senior Engineer Officer of the Commonwealth, a battleship in the Home Fleet. Between 1912 and 1914 he was Resident Admiralty Engineer Overseas, Midland District. He was also a lecturer in Marine Engineering and Design at the Royal Naval Colleges at Greenwich and Keyham.
On the outbreak of the Great War in August 1914 Emdin was promoted to Engineer Captain, and in February 1915 he was appointed to the armoured cruiser Shannon, flagship of the 2nd Cruiser Squadron, Grand Fleet, for general staff duties. In October 1915 Emdin was appointed to the staff of Rear Admiral Hugh Evan-Thomas C.B., M.V.O. in the Barham, commanding the 5th Battle Squadron (5BS). This consisted of the five Queen Elizabeth class super-dreadnoughts, the most powerful warships in the world. With a displacement of 30,000 tons, these ships had a main armament of eight 15-inch guns and were the first capital ships to be fuelled by oil rather than coal. 5BS formed part of the Battle Fleet but, in May 1916, the 3rd Battle Cruiser Squadron was detached from the Battle Cruiser Fleet and sent to Scapa Flow for gunnery training; to replace it four ships of 5BS was temporarily attached to Beatty's Battle Cruiser Fleet (the Queen Elizabeth was undergoing a refit).
5BS was still with the Battle Cruiser Fleet when it put to sea on the night of 30 May 1916. At around 14:30 on the 31st, Beatty had just signalled a turn to the north to rendezvous with Jellicoe's Battle Fleet. At that moment a light cruiser reported that the enemy were in sight and changed course to the south-east to intercept. He signalled by flag for the other ships to follow but because of the distance and the volume of smoke produced by the battlecruisers when travelling at speed, Lion's signal was not seen in the Barham. Therefore, although Evan-Thomas could see the battlecruisers racing off in the opposite direction, he assumed that Beatty wanted him to maintain his course. It was nearly ten minutes before Beatty realised that 5BS was not following him and signalled Evan-Thomas to join him; by that time, the distance between the two groups was ten miles. Beatty could still have slowed down to allow time for 5BS to join him but it was not in his nature to do so when the enemy was before him, and he went into action with only six capital ships instead of ten. This was one of the critical mistakes which cost the British a decisive victory. German gunnery was superior and within the first few minutes one battlecruiser had been blown up and the Lion herself had been hard hit and narrowly avoided the same fate.

By 16:10 5BS was within range of the rear-most ships in the German line and opened fire at the extreme range of 19,000 yards. Fresh from training under the meticulous eye of Jellicoe, 5BS was one of the most accurate shooting formations in the fleet and soon 15-inch shells were plunging down on the German ships. Von Der Tann and Moltke were both hit and suffered serious damage.
Admiral Scheer wrote 'Superiority in firing and tactical advantages of position were decidedly on our side until 4.19 pm when a new unit of four or five ships of the Queen Elizabeth type, with a considerable surplus of speed, drew up from a north-westerly direction and … joined in the fighting.

It was the English 5th Battle Squadron. This made the situation critical for our battlecruisers. The new enemy fired with extraordinary rapidity and accuracy. At this stage of the battle, known as 'the run to the south', Hipper and the German battlecruisers were luring Beatty and his ships towards the German High Seas Fleet approaching from the south. Every ninety seconds brought the British one mile closer to the sixteen dreadnoughts of the High Seas Fleet.
At 16:35 British light cruisers reported the presence of the High Seas Fleet to Beatty, who continued on his south-east course for another two miles until he could see the masts of the German battleships twelve miles away, At 16:40 the battlecruisers reversed course to the north-west. Now the roles had been reversed, and Beatty was luring the German fleet towards Jellicoe and the guns of the Grand Fleet, still about forty miles to the north. This phase of the battle, which lasted for about an hour, is referred to as 'the run to the north'. When the battlecruisers changed course, a communications breakdown similar to the previous one occurred and 5BS did not receive the order to turn northwards until 16:57, fully a quarter of an hour after Lion had turned. With the two fleets steaming towards each other at full speed this was enough time to bring 5BS well within range of the High Seas Fleet. To compound the error, the ships were ordered to turn in succession rather than together; the Germans concentrated their fire on the turning point and Barham was hit four times, probably by the Derflinger. The first of these hits, at 16:58, was one of the most destructive in the battle. The shell plunged through the upper deck level with 'B' turret barbette, completely wrecked the medical store and the auxiliary wireless office, caused very severe damage to the light structure and had a very marked incendiary effect. It flashed down a trunk to the dynamo room and burned all the men there, and upwards, via the ammunition hand-ups, to the starboard six-inch casement, causing a serious cordite fire and putting No. 2 gun's crew out of action. A fragment of this same shell found its way down to the lower conning tower, near the bottom of the ship, and severed the leg of the assistant navigation officer, who was plotting the ship's course. He died from loss of blood.

As 5BS carried out its belated turn, an officer in Malaya observed 'that our battlecruisers, proceeding northerly at full speed in close action with the German battlecruisers, were already quite 7,000 or 8,000 yards ahead of us. I then realised that just the four of us of the 5th BS alone would have to entertain the High Seas Fleet - four against perhaps twenty. The enemy continued to fire rapidly at us during and after the turn'.
After completing this turn under heavy fire, 5BS took up position some miles astern of the battlecruisers and steamed north at full speed, close to twenty-four knots. This was the time of maximum danger for Barham and her sisters for if any one of them had been disabled, she would have had to be left in the path of the High Seas Fleet to be overwhelmed, as happened to the crippled destroyers Nestor and Nomad, As Gordon remarks in 'The Rules of the Game', 'This may be hypothetical, but it was only one unlucky shell, on a day of unlucky shells, from reality'. 5BS was within range of both the German battlecruisers and the High Seas Fleet. Accordingly, Barham and Valiant fired on the former, Warspite and Malaya on the latter. Barham and Valiant achieved thirteen hits on their targets, inflicting massive damage on the Lützow, Derfflinger and Seydlitz.

The 'Run to the North' came to an end at about 18:00 when the Battle Cruiser Fleet sighted the Battle Fleet. Jellicoe then executed a complicated manoeuvre changing from cruising formation (in columns) to a single line of twenty-four battleships, with 5BS forming up astern of the others.

During the action between the two battle fleets at around 19:10 hrs, Barham fired on the Grossser Kurfurst, hitting her three times. Four torpedoes passed close to her without hitting her, and at 21:00 her 6-inch guns opened fire on what was erroneously thought to be a submarine. In his analysis of the performance of the respective ships at Jutland, Campbell wrote 'The best British performance was by the Barham and the Valiant. Their figures cannot be separated, but together they fired 625 rounds (337 by Barham) and made 23 or 24 hits'.

The following day the fleet steamed back to its bases, with Barham and many other ships committing their dead to the sea. There could be no question of stopping for the ceremony. One observer noted ‘The seas were coming aboard some of the ships and spray was sweeping along the decks. Surely no men ever had a wilder burial'. Barham had casualties of twenty-six dead and forty-six wounded, having been hit by five 13-inch shells and one 11-inch. She was in dry-dock at Devonport from 5 June to 4 July, and rejoined the fleet at Scapa on & July.

Emdin was mentioned in despatches for his role in the battle and awarded the Russian Order of St Anne. In the New Year's Honours of 1918 he was appointed to the Order of St Michael and St George and awarded decorations by France and Japan in 1919 and 1920 respectively.

Whilst Barham was still under repair, Emdin was appointed senior engineer of Thalia, the base ship at Invergordon. In May 1917 he was appointed Chief Engineer of the Malta Dockyard, and remained in this position until the end of the war. He was promoted to Engineer Rear Admiral on 17 October 1918. A year later he joined the staff of Admiral Sir Doveton Sturdee as Senior Engineer Officer at the Nore and held this appointment until his retirement in 1923.
Emdin was a member of the Institute of Metals, and was listed in 'Who's Who in Engineering'. He married Kate Mathilda, eldest daughter of Charles Malcolm Johnson, a Chief Inspector of Machinery in the Royal Navy, in 1891, and there was one daughter. In 1922 he lived at Star Hill, Rochester, Kent; after his retirement he lived at Oak Lodge, Hailsham Road, Heathfield, Sussex. Admiral Emdin died on 15 February 1950.

David

What an incredible service and active life Emdin had with the Boer War being a relatively short interlude. So much detail
Thanks
Clive