Ralph Seymour

Commander Ralph Frederick Seymour, (6 January 1886 – 4 October 1922) was a British Royal Navy officer in the First world war. Family Seymour was the fourth child and first son of Sir Horace Alfred Damer Seymour, KCB (1843–1902), and Elizabeth Mary Romilly (1859–1950). His father had been private secretary to Gladstone during 1880–1885, a Commissioner of Customs and Deputy Master of the Mint. The family had numerous aristocratic and naval connections. Ralph's great-grandfather was Vice-Admiral Lord Hugh Seymour (a younger son of the 1st Marquess of Hertford), and he was descended in the male line from the 1st Duke of Somerset, Lord Protector under King Edward VI. He was also a nephew by marriage of the 5th Earl Spencer, First Lord of the Admiralty in the 1890s, and was thus also distantly related to Winston Churchill; his eldest sister Horatia (1881–1966) was one of the closest friends of Churchill's wife Clementine. It has been suggested that it was the Churchill connection that brought Lieutenant Seymour to the attention of Beatty, who had been Churchill's Naval Secretary in 1912. Naval career He entered the Royal Navy, and was on 1 October 1902 posted as a midshipman to HMS St George, serving in the Home Fleet. The following month, he was temporarily posted to HMS Revenge, flagship of the Home Fleet, and from February 1903 he served on the new HMS Russell on the Mediterranean station. He was promoted to lieutenant on 15 December 1906.