Publication:Papers in Australian Maritime Affairs No. 17/Gaunt, Sir Ernest Frederick Augustus (1865-1940) and Sir Guy Reginald Archer (1869-1953)
GAUNT, Sir ERNEST FREDERICK AUGUSTUS (1865-1940) and Sir GUY REGINALD ARCHER (1869-1953), admirals, were born in Victoria, sons of William Henry Gaunt and his wife Elizabeth Mary, née Palmer. Their brother Cecil Robert Gaunt served as a senior officer in the British Army and Mary Eliza was their sister.
Ernest Gaunt was born on 25 March 1865 at Beechworth. After a year (1876) at Melbourne Grammar he went to England to join HMS Britannia as a naval cadet. He served on the Australia Station from 1880 to 1884; as sub-lieutenant in HMS Nelson, he hoisted the British flag when the British Protectorate over New Guinea was proclaimed. In 1896 he was promoted first lieutenant of the armoured cruiser HMS Narcissus, and in China in 1898-99 served in administrative posts; he was thanked by the Austrian and German Commanders-in-Chief for his services during the Boxer Rebellion. In early December 1903 he was severely wounded when he commanded a landing party to avenge the death of an Italian naval officer in Somaliland; on 31 December he was promoted captain and subsequently commanded the battleships HM Ships Majestic, Queen and Superb. From October 1914 he held the rank of rear admiral and commanded the 1st Battle Squadron of the Fleet in the Battle of Jutland. He was promoted vice admiral in February 1919 and admiral in June 1924 before retiring in March next year. He was appointed KCB in 1919 and KBE in 1922. In 1899 he had married Louise Geraldine Martyn (d.1934) of County Clare, Ireland. He retired to Monte Carlo and later London, where he died on 20 April 1940 at Westminster Hospital, survived by a son and two daughters.
Guy Gaunt was born on 25 May 1869 at Ballarat West. A boarder at Melbourne Grammar in 1881-83, he was intended for the law but pleaded to go to sea. His father could only afford to send him to HMS Worcester, the training ship for officers of the merchant navy; he soon transferred to the Royal Naval Reserve and was rated a midshipman on 17 December 1886. In October 1895 he joined the RN under the provisions of a Special Order in Council.
In February 1896 Guy Gaunt became navigating lieutenant of the gun vessel Swift, then on the China Station, and took part in operations in the Philippines in 1897. Serving in HMS Porpoise in 1897, he commanded the British Consulate at Apia, Samoa, during a rebel attack, and in subsequent uprisings raised and commanded a native force, dubbed 'Gaunt's Brigade', and was mentioned in dispatches. In June 1901 he was promoted commander. He served in the battleship HMS Vengeance in China during the Russo-Japanese War and later in Cressy and Glory. In 1904 at Hongkong he married a widow, Mrs Margaret Elizabeth Worthington, daughter of Sir Thomas Wardle.
Promoted captain in 1907, Guy Gaunt commanded the cruiser Andromeda and subsequently the cruisers Niobe and Challenger (on the Australia Station) and the battleships Majestic and Thunderer. In June 1914 he was appointed Naval Attaché in Washington; his success in counteracting the effects of German propaganda in North America brought him prominence. He was appointed Liaison Officer with the United States of America on its entry into the war. In 1918 he was employed in convoy service across the Atlantic and in June was appointed to the naval intelligence staff at the Admiralty. He was promoted on the retired list to rear admiral in October 1918, vice admiral in July 1924 and admiral in February 1928. He was appointed CMG in 1916 and CB, KCMG, in 1918, and was elected a younger brother of Trinity House.
In 1922 Sir Guy was elected to the House of Commons as Conservative member for the Buckrose Division of Yorkshire but resigned in February 1926. In July he was cited as co-respondent in the divorce case between Sir Richard Cruise and his wife. Sir Guy's wife divorced him in December 1927. He retired to Tangier, and on 1 December 1932 married a 35 year old widow, Sybil Victoria Joseph, née Grant White; they had two daughters. His autobiography, The Yield of the Years, was published in 1940. Sir Guy visited Australia in 1925, 1931-32 and in 1951. He lived at Cobham, Surrey, England, before his death in hospital at nearby Woking on 18 May 1953; he was cremated.
Sally O'Neill
Sally O'Neill, 'Gaunt, Sir Ernest Frederick Augustus (1865-1940) and Sir Guy Reginald Archer (1869-1953)', in Australian Dictionary of Biography, Vol. 8, Melbourne University Press, Melbourne, 1981, pp. 631-632, as modified for Papers in Australian Maritime Affairs, No. 17. The ADB biographies are available online at www.adb.online.anu.edu.au
