Baron Charles William De la Poer Beresford Beresford
Life and career
Charles William de la Poer Beresford (1846–1919) was an admiral and member of the British Parliament. He entered the Royal Navy in 1859 and became widely known for his command of the gunboat Condor during the bombardment of Alexandria in 1882. Later commands included the Mediterranean and Channel fleets. His public career was also marked by disputes over naval policy, particularly with John Fisher. The Memoirs of Admiral Lord Beresford should therefore be read as an experienced participant's account and a presentation of his own record. Personal recollection can illuminate life at sea while also defending decisions, reputations, and ideas about leadership.
Service told as a personal career
Beresford’s anecdotes turn institutional history into a remembered life. Humor and practical detail can make a shipboard world accessible while also strengthening the image its narrator wishes to leave. His public disagreements make self-presentation especially relevant. The memoir’s authority comes from participation, but participation also supplies commitments that affect how an action is defended or an opponent described.
The one-volume memoirs
Beresford traces his career from entering the Royal Navy in 1859 to coming ashore in 1909. Recollections of ships, officers, discipline, and journeys are interwoven with political episodes and imperial encounters. The memoir's energy comes from a narrator who presents service as a varied personal adventure, but his judgments remain those of a participant with strong commitments. L. Cope Cornford's introduction and notes supply historical connections and should be distinguished from the personal narrative. This is the one-volume fourth edition, rather than a new account of the First World War. Readers can follow the changing material and social world of naval service while asking how humour, anecdote, and self-justification shape the image an experienced officer chooses to leave behind. English memoirs · fourth edition in one volume, 1916.
Compare the anecdote with the claim
Ask what an entertaining episode is meant to establish about leadership or competence. Does it support a general rule, or chiefly make the narrator memorable? Separate Cornford’s explanatory framing from Beresford’s recollection. The 1916 edition date does not turn the memoir’s earlier span of service into a report of wartime events that its narrative does not cover.