{{Short description|Royal Navy Admiral (1873–1953)}} {{Use dmy dates|date=October 2017}} {{Use British English|date=October 2017}} {{Infobox military person |honorific_prefix = [[Admiral (Royal Navy)|Admiral]] |name = Richard Stapleton-Cotton |honorific_suffix = {{post-nominals|country=GBR|size=100%|CB|CBE|MVO}} |birth_name= Richard Greville Arthur Wellington Stapleton-Cotton |birth_date= 7 November 1873 |death_date= 5 January 1953 |image= |image_size= |caption= |birth_place= [[Wellington Barracks]], London |death_place= [[Merionethshire]] |burial_place= |nickname= |allegiance= {{flagcountry|UKGBI}} |service_years= 1887–1931 |rank= [[Admiral (Royal Navy)|Admiral]] |branch= {{navy|UK}} |commands= |unit= |battles= [[First World War]] |awards= [[Royal Victorian Order|Member of the Royal Victorian Order]]<br/>[[Order of the British Empire|Commander of the Order of the British Empire]]<br/>[[Order of the Bath|Companion of the Bath]] |relations= |other_work=[[Gentleman Usher of the Scarlet Rod]] }}
[[Admiral (Royal Navy)|Admiral]] '''Richard Greville Arthur Wellington Stapleton-Cotton''' {{post-nominals|country=GBR|size=100%|CB|CBE|MVO}} (7 November 1873 – 5 January 1953) was a British officer of the [[Royal Navy]].
== Early life and family ==
Richard Greville Arthur Wellington Stapleton-Cotton was born at [[Wellington Barracks]], London, on 7 November 1873, the second son of [[Colonel]] the Honourable Richard Southwell George Stapleton-Cotton (1849–1925), of Plas Llwynon, [[Anglesey]], and his wife, the Honourable Jane Charlotte Methuen, daughter of [[Frederick Methuen, 2nd Baron Methuen|Frederick Henry Paul Methuen, second Baron Methuen]].<ref name="Crisp18-23">Crisp, ''Visitation of England and Wales'', vol. 18, p. 23</ref><ref>''Who Was Who'', vol. 5, 1961, p. 1038 for date of death.</ref> His father was the younger son of the [[Wellington Stapleton-Cotton, 2nd Viscount Combermere|second Viscount Combermere]] and had been the Inspector-General of Police in Guiana from 1889 to 1891, was an officer in the [[Wiltshire Regiment]], having served in the [[Anglo-Zulu War]] of 1879 and in [[Bechuanaland]] in 1885, and served as a [[Justice of the Peace]] for [[Shropshire]] and [[Cheshire]].<ref>''Dod's Peerage, Baronetage and Knightage'', 1920, pt. 1, p. 195</ref>
In 1910, he married Olive Harriet Cotton-Jodrell,<ref>''England and Wales Civil Registration Indexes'', General Register Office, Marriage Records, Q3 1910, vol. 8a, p. 731</ref> a daughter of [[Edward Cotton-Jodrell|Sir Edward Thomas Davenant Cotton-Jodrell]], of Reaseheath and Yeardsley, Cheshire, [[Member of Parliament]] for [[Wirral (UK Parliament constituency)|Wirral]], and his wife Mary Rennell Coleridge.<ref>''Walford's County Families of the United Kingdom'', 1913, p. 257; Fox-Davies, ''Armorial Families'', 1929, p. 441</ref>
Stapleton-Cotton and his dog Tinker are the only two males ever to be accepted as fully paid-up members of the [[Women's Institute]]: he played a major part in setting up the first WI meeting in the UK, held in Anglesey in 1915.<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-wales-26133605|title=WI started in Wales during Great War|first=Neil|last=Prior|date=24 February 2014|access-date=25 January 2019 |work=BBC News}}</ref>
=== Ancestry ===
{{ahnentafel |align=center|collapsed=yes |boxstyle_1=background-color: #fcc; |boxstyle_2=background-color: #fb9; |boxstyle_3=background-color: #ffc; |boxstyle_4=background-color: #bfc; |1= 1. Admiral '''Richard Greville Arthur Wellington Stapleton-Cotton'''
|2= 2. Col. Hon. Richard Southwell George Stapleton-Cotton<ref name="Crisp18-23"/> |3= 3. Hon. Jane Charlotte Methuen<ref name="Crisp18-23"/>
|4= 4. Col. Rt. Hon. [[Wellington Stapleton-Cotton, 2nd Viscount Combermere|Wellington Henry Stapleton-Cotton, Viscount Combermere]]<ref name="Crisp18-21">Crisp, ''Visitation of England and Wales'', vol. 18, p. 21</ref> |5= 5. Susan Alice Sitwell<ref name="Crisp18-21"/> |6= 6. Rt. Hon. [[Frederick Methuen, 2nd Baron Methuen|Frederick Henry Methuen, second Baron Methuen]]<ref name="Crisp18-23"/> |7= 7. Anna Horatia Caroline Sanford<ref name="Crisp18-23"/><ref>London Metropolitan Archives, St George Hanover Square, Westminster, ''Transcript of baptisms'', marriages and burials, Jan 1824-Dec 1824, DL/T/089/019.</ref>
|8 = 8. Field Marshal Rt. Hon. [[Stapleton Cotton, 1st Viscount Combermere|Stapleton Stapleton-Cotton, first Viscount Combermere]]<ref name="Crisp18-20">Crisp, ''Visitation of England and Wales'', vol. 18, p. 20</ref> |9 = 9. Caroline Greville<ref name="Crisp18-20"/><ref>daughter of Capt. William Fulke Greville RN.</ref> |10= 10. Sir George Sitwell, second Baronet<ref name="Crisp18-21"/> |11= 11. Susan Tait, daughter of Crauford Tait<ref name="Crisp18-21"/> |12= 12. Rt. Hon. [[Paul Methuen, 1st Baron Methuen|Paul Methuen, first Baron Methuen]]<ref name="Cokayne">Cokayne, ''Complete Peerage'', 1895, 1st ed., vol. 5, p. 305</ref> |13= 13. Jane Dorothea St John-Mildmay<ref name="Cokayne"/><ref>daughter of Sir Henry Paulet St John-Mildmay, formerly St John.</ref> |14= 14. Rev. John Sanford, of Nynehead<ref name="Crisp18-23"/> |15= 15. Eliza Georgiana Morgan<ref>W.J. Fitzpatrick, ''The Life, Times and Contemporaries of Lord Cloncurry'', 1855, pp. 302-303.</ref> }}
== Naval career ==
Stapleton-Cotton entered the [[Royal Navy]] as a cadet in 1887. He was promoted to [[midshipman]] two years later and then became a Sub-Lieutenant in 1893, lieutenant two years later, commander in 1905 and captain in 1913. He was the Commander at<ref>ADM 196/89/155</ref> the [[Royal Naval College, Osborne|Royal Naval College at Osborne]] from 1906 to 1910.<ref name="Crisp18-23"/> Promoted to rear-admiral in 1923<ref>''Navy List'', July 1924, p. 75</ref> and then to vice-admiral in 1928, he was placed on the retired list by 1931.<ref>''Navy List'', July 1931, 552</ref> In 1932, he was promoted to the rank of admiral in the retired list.<ref>''The London Gazette'', 21 October 1932, issue 33875, p. 6626</ref>
In 1905, he was appointed a Member of the [[Royal Victorian Order]] (MVO).<ref name="Crisp18-23"/> He was also appointed a Commander of the [[Order of the British Empire]] (CBE) and a Companion of the [[Order of the Bath]] (CB).<ref>''The London Gazette'', 21 October 1932, issue 33875, p. 6626</ref> From 1928 to 1932, Stapleton-Cotton served as [[Gentleman Usher of the Scarlet Rod]], and then as Registrar and Secretary of the Order of the Bath from 1932 to 1948; in the latter capacity, he attended the [[Coronation of King George VI and Queen Elizabeth]] in 1937 and took part in the procession into the Abbey.<ref>''Who Was Who'', vol. 5, 1961, p. 1038; [https://www.thegazette.co.uk/London/issue/34453/supplement/7047/data.pdf ''Supplement to the London Gazette''], 10 November 1937, no. 34453, p. 7047</ref>
== Later life ==
Admiral Stapleton-Cotton died on 5 January 1953, aged 79, in [[Merionethshire]]. He left an estate worth over £24,000.<ref>''England and Wales Civil Registration Indexes'', General Register Office, Death Records, Q1 1953, vol. 8c, p. 1; ''National Probate Calendar'', 1953</ref>
== References == === Citations === {{reflist|2}}
=== Bibliography === * G.E. Cokayne (1895), [https://archive.org/details/completepeerage01cokagoog ''The Complete Peerage''], 1st edition, volume 5. * F.A. Crisp (1914), [https://archive.org/details/visitationofengl18howa ''Visitation of England and Wales''], volume 18. * A.C. Fox-Davies (1929), [https://archive.org/details/armorialfamilies01foxd ''Armorial Families''], seventh edition.
{{s-start}} {{s-hon}} {{s-bef|before=[[Wyndham Murray]]}} {{s-ttl|title=[[Gentleman Usher of the Scarlet Rod]]| years=1928–1932}} {{s-aft|after=[[Charles Longcroft]]}} {{s-end}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Stapleton-Cotton, Richard}} [[Category:1873 births]] [[Category:1953 deaths]] [[Category:Royal Navy admirals]] [[Category:Royal Navy officers of World War I]] [[Category:Members of the Royal Victorian Order]] [[Category:Commanders of the Order of the British Empire]] [[Category:Companions of the Order of the Bath]] [[Category:Military personnel from Westminster]] [[Category:Gentlemen Ushers]]