Samuel Harrison Dunlop
Samuel Harrison Dunlop (1884-1950)
1951 Obituary [1]
"Engineer Rear-Admiral SAMUEL HARRISON DUNLOP, C.B., will long be remembered in the Admiralty for his work in connection with the administration of H.M. Dockyards. He was born in Odessa, Russia, on 2nd July 1884, and was educated in the town of his birth at the St. Paul's Science School from 1893 to 1900.
He was then employed at the works of Bellino Fenderich, Odessa, general engineers and shipbuilders, from September 1900 to August 1904. The anti-British feelings which found expression all over the continent of Europe during the Boer War made him determined to join one of the British fighting services, preferably the Royal Navy. Consequently, he entered Glasgow University as an engineering student in October 1904, completing his course of studies for the degree of B.Sc. in March 1906, and obtained a commission in the Royal Navy in the rank of engineer sub-lieutenant in July 1906.
He was promoted engineer lieutenant in October 1908. As a junior engineer officer he served in H.M.Ss. Ocean, Cochrane, Monmouth, and King George V between 1906 and 1914. During this period he qualified for a first-class interpretership in Russian. He was afloat for the whole of the 1914-18 war, first as senior engineer in HMS Hindustan and afterwards as engineer officer of the destroyers Lucifer and Torch, being promoted to engineer lieutenant-commander in 1916. When hostilities ceased he was appointed senior engineer of HMS Princess Royal, and, in March 1920, second assistant to the engineer manager, Portsmouth Dockyard. On being promoted engineer commander in December 1921 he was reappointed as junior first assistant in the same dockyard.
In January 1924 he was appointed to the department of the Director of Dockyards, Admiralty, where his association with Engineer Captain Ivor Roberts, then assistant to the Director of Dockyards, was to exert an influence which continued throughout his official life. With this appointment he commenced his association with the Admiralty Dockyard Service which eventually culminated in his appointment, when serving as an engineer rear-admiral, as Deputy Director of Dockyards, in December 1940. The only breaks in his dockyard service occurred in 1927-30 when he was appointed engineer officer in the rank of engineer commander to HMS Queen Elizabeth, Fleet Flagship of the Mediterranean Station, and on his appointment to the Engineer-in-Chief's Department, Admiralty, where he served in the ranks of engineer commander and engineer captain from May 1930 to November 1934.
Admiral Dunlop's almost unrivalled tenure of office in the administration of the engineering side of H.M. Dockyards was noted not only for his sympathetic treatment of the civilian and industrial staffs, but also for his ready collaboration with other dockyard departments. Trusted, respected, and liked by not only senior officers, but by all who came in contact with him, he was able to bring the dockyard service through the great difficulties of the 1939-45 war.
He was created a C.B. in 1940, and awarded the Order of a Grand Officer, Order of Orange-Nassau with swords by H.M. The Queen of the Netherlands in 1947. Engineer Rear-Admiral Dunlop retired in July 1946. Subsequent to his retirement, he associated himself with many charities and other interests in Guildford, where he had his home, and took a great interest in the cricket of the neighbourhood. Admiral Dunlop became a Member of the Institution in 1916. He died on 25th May 1950 after a very short illness."
Vice-Admiral (E.) Sir Denys Ford, K.C.B., C.B.E., M.I.Mech.E.