{{Short description|Royal Navy Admiral; Commander-in-Chief, East Indies Station (1866–1939)}} {{Use dmy dates|date=September 2021}} {{Infobox military person |honorific_prefix = Admiral |name = Sir Lewis Clinton-Baker |honorific_suffix = {{post-nominals|country=GBR|size=100%|KCB|KCVO|CBE}} |image= |caption= |birth_date=16 March 1866 |death_date= {{death date and age|1939|12|12|1866|3|16|df=y}} |birth_place= |death_place= |allegiance={{UK}} |branch={{Navy|United Kingdom}} |rank=Admiral |service_years=1879–1927 |commands=HMS ''Gibraltar''<br>HMS ''Berwick''<br>HMS ''Hercules''<br>HMS ''Benbow''<br>East Indies Station |battles=Mahdist War<br>Second Boer War<br>World War I |awards=Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath<br>Knight Commander of the Royal Victorian Order<br>Commander of the Order of the British Empire |relations= }} Admiral '''Sir Lewis Clinton-Baker''' {{postnominals|country=GBR|size=100%|KCB|KCVO|CBE}} (16 March 1866 – 12 December 1939) was a Royal Navy officer who served as Commander-in-Chief, East Indies Station.
== Life == He was born at Bayfordbury, Hertfordshire, the second son of William Clinton Baker J.P. (1839–1903) and his wife Edith Mildmay Ashhurst Majendie, eldest daughter of the Rev. Henry Lewis Majendie.<ref name=bio>{{cite book|editor-first=Frederick Arthur |editor-last=Crisp |title=Visitation of England and Wales |volume=20|url=https://archive.org/details/visitationofengl20howa/page/53/mode/1up|year=1917 |page=53 |publisher=Privately printed |location=London}}</ref><ref>{{alox2|title=Baker, William Clinton}}</ref><ref>{{alox2|title=Majendie, Henry Lewis}}</ref>
Clinton-Baker joined the Royal Navy in 1879.<ref name=bio/> He took part in the bombardment of Alexandria in 1882 and went to command HMS ''Gibraltar'' during the Second Boer War.<ref name=bio/> He was promoted to Commander on 1 January 1901<ref>{{London Gazette |issue=27263 |date=4 January 1901 |page=82 }}</ref> and commanded HMS ''Berwick'' from 1908.<ref>[http://www.worldnavalships.com/navy_list_1908_ship_a_to_c.htm Navy List 1908]</ref>
He served in World War I as Captain of HMS ''Hercules'', which he commanded at the Battle of Jutland in 1916.<ref>[http://www.gwpda.org/naval/jut03lst.htm Battle of Jutland – Royal Navy Ships and Commanding Officers]</ref> With him there on the ''Hercules'' was Gustav von Schoultz, the Finnish naval attaché from the Russian Empire, who wrote in his memoirs of waiting on the bridge with Clinton-Baker, waiting for the signal to deploy.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Legg |first1=Stuart |title=Jutland; an Eye-witness Account of a Great Battle |date=1966 |publisher=Hart-Davis |page=84 |language=en}}</ref> He was Captain of HMS ''Benbow'' from later that year; he then took responsibility for laying a mine barrage across the North Sea<ref name=bio/> from a base at Grangemouth.<ref>[http://www.gwpda.org/naval/rnfo1418.htm Royal Navy Flag Officers 1914-1918]</ref>
He became Second-in-Command of the Second Battle Squadron in 1919, Admiral Superintendent of Chatham Dockyard in 1920<ref>The Times, 9 June 1921</ref> and Commander-in-Chief, East Indies Station in 1921.<ref>Whitaker's Almanack 1923</ref> In 1925 he was made Admiral commanding the Reserves<ref>Navy Notes, The RUSI Journal, Volume 70, Issue 479 August 1925 , pages 563 – 575</ref> and in 1927 he retired.<ref>Navy Notes, The RUSI Journal, Volume 72, Issue 487 August 1927 , pages 651 – 662</ref> [[File:Group of Newly Graduated Naval Executive Officers Crockett 1899.jpg|thumb|left|Graduates of Britannia Royal Naval College, 1899 photograph with Lieut. Clinton-Baker on the right, 1899 photograph]]
==Pinetum== Clinton-Baker's residence in later life was at Bayfordbury.<ref>[http://www.moretonhampstead.org.uk/texts/people/fynes.ghtml Stories about the Rev. James Fynes, Rector of St Andrews Church 1735-1774]</ref> His grandfather William Robert Baker (1810–1897) had founded a pinetum there, in 1837, based on existing fir trees, working with John Claudius Loudon and applying taxonomy from the de Jussieu system. His elder brother Henry William Clinton Baker developed it further, from 1903.<ref>{{cite web |title=History |url=http://www.clintonbakerpinetum.org.uk/history.html |website=The Clinton-Baker Pinetum |language=en}}</ref> Clinton-Baker introduced the cypress ''Chamaecyparis formosensis'', collected on Formosa in 1910.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Welch |first1=Humphrey J. |title=The Conifer Manual|volume=1 |date=6 December 2012 |publisher=Springer Science & Business Media |isbn=978-94-011-3704-1 |page=196 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=uJHpCAAAQBAJ&pg=PA196 |language=en}}</ref>
In 1945, after Clinton-Baker's death, Bayfordbury became the home of the John Innes Horticultural Institution.<ref>{{cite web |title=The history of plant science and microbial science at JIC |url=https://www.jic.ac.uk/about-us/history-of-plant-microbial-science-at-john-innes-centre/ |website=John Innes Centre}}</ref>
==Family== On 11 May 1920 Clinton-Baker married Rosa Agnes Henderson MBE, who in March that year had been honoured for war work with Queen Mary's Needlework Guild. The ceremony took place in the chapel of Royal Foundation of St Katharine, at that time on a site near Regent's Park, London;<ref name="marriage1">{{cite news |title=Social & Personal |url=https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0006272/19200514/091/0004 |work=Portsmouth Times and Naval Gazette |date=14 May 1920|page=4}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |title=New Honours List |url=https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0000264/19200331/016/0005 |work=Western Daily Press |date=31 March 1920|page=5}}</ref> her younger sister Jessie Marguerite had married in 1913 Geoffrey Arbuthnot RN.<ref name="marriage2">{{cite news |title=Marriage of Lieut. Arbuthnot and Miss Henderson. |url=https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0002679/19131024/123/0008 |work=Somerset Standard |date=24 October 1913|page=8}}</ref> Their father was the late William Henderson (1842–1910), of Berkley House, Berkley, Somerset, near Frome, who died in 1910 at age 67. A son of the Manchester merchant Charles Paton Henderson, senior, he had been a merchant in China.<ref name="marriage1"/><ref name="marriage2"/><ref>{{cite web |title=Baptisms at the Cathedral in the City of Manchester, Baptisms recorded in the Register for 1843: Lancashire OnLine Parish Clerk Project |url=https://www.lan-opc.org.uk/Manchester/Manchester/cathedral/baptisms_1843i.html |website=www.lan-opc.org.uk}}</ref> The mother of the family of three daughters and a son was Jessie Dennistoun Bankier, daughter of William Bankier of Glasgow. The couple were married in 1888.<ref>{{cite news |title=Death of Mr. Henderson of Berkley House. |url=https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0002679/19100408/121/0008 |work=Somerset Standard |date=8 April 1910|page=8}}</ref>
The couple had a son William Lewis Clinton-Baker (born 1921), and a daughter Jean.<ref>{{cite book|last=Fox-Davies|first=Arthur Charles|title=Armorial Families|edition=7th|year=1929|publisher=Hurst & Blackett|location=London|page=79|volume=1}}</ref>
==References== {{reflist}}
==External links== * [https://landedfamilies.blogspot.com/2018/05/ (332) Baker (now Baker-Baker) of Crook Hall, Elemore Hall and Sedbury Hall, ''Landed families of Britain and Ireland'' by Nick Kingsley, 27 May 2018]
{{s-start}} {{s-mil}} {{succession box | title=Commander-in-Chief, East Indies Station | before=Sir Hugh Tothill | after=Sir Herbert Richmond|years=1921–1923}} {{end}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Clinton-Baker, Lewis}} Category:1866 births Category:1939 deaths Category:Royal Navy admirals Category:Knights Commander of the Order of the Bath Category:Knights Commander of the Royal Victorian Order Category:Commanders of the Order of the British Empire Category:Royal Navy personnel of the Anglo-Egyptian War Category:Royal Navy personnel of the Second Boer War Category:Royal Navy personnel of World War I