[BITList] Steadying the ship

[John Feltham]

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Stephens, Sir  Philip, baronet  (1723-1809), Admiralty official, was the third and youngest son of Nathaniel Stephens (1679-1730), rector of Alphamstone, Essex, and Ellis, nee Deane (d. 1762). He was born on 11 October 1723 in the neighbouring village of Bures and educated in the free school at Harwich. His eldest brother, Tyringham (1713-1768), went into the victualling office and the second son, Nathaniel (1721-1748), was a captain in the navy. Philip was said to have followed his brother into the victualling office, but on 3 July 1739 was certainly appointed to the Navy Office as a clerk of storekeepers' accounts. On 21 January 1741 he was transferred to the ticket office, again part of the Navy Office, and he remained on the books in this post for ten years. During this time he caught the eye of George Anson, just returned from his voyage around the world. There are grounds for thinking that the young ticket office clerk impressed the commodore by sorting out the considerable pay problems of his seamen after the voyage; in any event he became Anson's secretary. By 1748 Stephens was handling the very large sums of prize money due to Anson and Sir Peter Warren. On 6 April 1751 he was made first clerk of the Admiralty, according to one observer 'over clerks' heads who have been 24 and 26 years in the office'  (M. E. Matcham, A Forgotten John Russell, 1905, 323). He went to sea with Anson in 1752, when the first lord had to escort the king across the channel, and for four months in 1758, when Anson had hurriedly to replace Edward Hawke as commander-in-chief of the Channel Fleet. Stephens was active at this time as a prize agent, acting for others, including George Bridges Rodney, and clearly made a great deal of money by doing so.

Stephens was made second secretary on 16 October 1759 and on the death of John Clevland was appointed secretary on 18 June 1763, it being 'usual in time of peace to have but one secretary', as the Admiralty minutes put it  (TNA: PRO, ADM 3/71, 4 July 1763). It was a position which he occupied for twenty-two years, serving ten first lords of the Admiralty. Although it is difficult to gauge Stephens's personal influence, particularly as he appears to have preferred to remain in the background, the position of Admiralty secretary was pivotal and the effort that was required was remorseless. No significant decision was taken without his presence. Apart from his responsibility for the office as a whole, it was he who regulated the business which went to the board. Stephens's illness in the winter of 1775-6, probably from overwork, was the subject of anxious comment from Lord Sandwich and Sir Hugh Palliser. When by 1779 tempers became frayed, Sandwich complained to Lord Mulgrave, at the same time as demonstrating his complete dependence on his secretary:

I have no doubt but that Sir Charles Hardy's fleet can be manned immediately; but today I could not get Stephens to do anything ... all this would be easily managed if we could get things clearly stated to us, but Stephens is growing so exceedingly fractious of late, that it takes off all my means of doing business with him: I know that I can get quick to the point if I have materials; but if those who are to furnish that aid, do not do their part, my talents (such as they are) become totally useless. (24 May 1779, Mulgrave Castle, MS VI, 11/62)
Charles Middleton, the irascible comptroller of the Navy Board, was frustrated at several points, aware of Stephens's power. 'Unless your Lordship', he wrote to Sandwich in 1781, 'who is the first mover, will condescend to read the Navy Board correspondence yourself ... we shall never be free of disappointment ... Mr. Stephens cannot act of himself'  (Private Papers of ... Sandwich, 4.385). In spite of these irritations, it was to Stephens that Sandwich turned at any crisis; when the French and Spanish fleets united in the channel in 1781, Sandwich went immediately to Stephens at his home to draft the orders for his admirals. The earl of Bristol had no doubts, for when he was attacking Sandwich in parliament in 1779 he called Stephens 'the most diligent, most intelligent, and indefatigable man in business I ever knew; and from whose absence on sickness, I am not at all surprised at anything that may happen to go wrong'  (Cobbett, Parl. hist., 2.439).

Stephens was seen as indispensable to whichever government was in power, though it was inevitable that he became embroiled in political differences. He was criticized by Samuel Barrington, for instance, reflecting the differences between that admiral and Sandwich, and in 1778 he exchanged sharp letters with Augustus Keppel; but when Keppel became first lord in 1782 Stephens remarked to the earl of Hardwicke, 'It is impossible for anyone to be more cordial or friendly than Admiral Keppel is to me'  (1 April 1782, BL, Add. MS 35619). Stephens served as member of parliament for Liskeard from 1 December 1759 to 1768, when he represented Sandwich until 1806. There is no record of him having spoken in forty-five years, although he had a reputation for looking after his constituents.

More positive evidence of Stephens's personal influence can be traced in his encouragement of exploration, which started from James Cook's first voyage. Stephens had known of Cook since the early 1760s and it was he, with Hugh Palliser, who made possible the decision to select Cook. From the middle of 1768 Stephens was cultivated by the shrewd Joseph Banks, who correctly saw him as the means of circumventing the unco-operative first lord, Sir Edward Hawke, when the Endeavour was being fitted out. There is anecdotal evidence that Cook was a frequent visitor to Stephens's home in Fulham. Cook repaid the compliment by the naming of Cape Stephens and Stephens Island in the Cook Strait in New Zealand during the first voyage. Stephens was elected a fellow of the Royal Society on 6 June 1771, a month before Cook returned, by which time it was known that Cook had succeeded. At the dinner early in 1777 at which, according to Andrew Kippis, Cook agreed to command the third voyage, Stephens was also present, with Sandwich and Palliser. In the 1790s James Colnett dedicated to him his journal, Voyage Round Cape Horn, and George Vancouver named an island in Chatham Sound after him. Stephens also played a key preparatory role when Alexander Dalrymple was appointed to head the hydrographic office, a decision completed just after he had resigned the secretaryship on 3 March 1795, aged seventy-one. He was created a baronet on 13 March.

The final chapter in Stephens's career concerns his membership of the Board of Admiralty, when he again served under a large number of first lords. Six in eleven years is an indication of a stormy period of politics, including the trauma of Lord St Vincent's administration, when at one point in 1803 both Admiralty secretaries tried to resign. Stephens's role was unlikely to have been central, though, for instance, he appeared at the bar of the house with the estimates in December 1803, and his experience was clearly appreciated. When Viscount Melville took over as first lord in 1804 the king pressed him to keep Stephens as a commissioner, by then over eighty, and Melville agreed, as he 'already had means of observing and availing himself of the long experience of Sir Philip in the detail of naval arrangements'  (Melville to George III, 29 May 1804, George III, Later Corr., 4.183). Stephens finally resigned on 23 October 1806 and was granted a pension of £1500 per annum.

Stephens served the navy for sixty-seven years and he represented the tradition of continuity of expertise, for there had been, in contrast to many other offices of state, only four secretaries since 1694. Though a shadowy figure, presiding over an office of great political power and wealth, at the same time he set high standards of administrative stamina. He was a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries, elected on 8 March 1792, and one of his sponsors was Joseph Banks. Stephens died on 20 November 1809. He was a wealthy man who had lent money to the penurious Lord Sandwich; he lived in style in Fulham, owning more than 50 acres there and three houses, one of which was occupied by Lord St Vincent during his time as first lord. But Stephens's last years were especially tinged with tragedy. He had remained unmarried, but he had an illegitimate daughter, Caroline, who married Viscount Ranelagh in 1804; she died in childbirth on 17 June 1805. (It was after Caroline that William Broughton, when crossing the Pacific, had named Caroline Island, in the Southern Line group, later part of the republic of Kiribati.) In 1790 he had already lost his illegitimate son, then aged twenty, in a duel. The next generation of his family had all predeceased him, and the baronetcy became extinct. Stephens was buried in All Saints, Fulham parish church, next to his daughter.

Roger Knight 

Sources  DNB + J. C. Sainty, ed., Admiralty officials, 1660-1870 (1975) + J. M. Collinge, Navy Board officials, 1660-1832 (1978) + The private papers of John, earl of Sandwich, ed. G. R. Barnes and J. H. Owen, 4 vols., Navy RS, 69, 71, 75, 78 (1932-8) + GM, 1st ser., 79 (1809), 1234 + GM, 1st ser., 80 (1810), 128 + J. C. Beaglehole, The life of Captain James Cook, Hakluyt Society, 37 (1974) + F. B. Wickwire, 'Admiralty secretaries and the British civil service', Huntington Library Quarterly, 28 (1964-5), 235-54 + F. B. Wickwire, 'King's friends, civil servants or politicians', American Historical Review, 71 (1965-6), 18-42 + G. F. James, ed., 'The admiralty establishment, 1759', BIHR, 16 (1938-9), 24-7 + N. A. M. Rodger, The insatiable earl: a life of John Montagu, fourth earl of Sandwich (1993) + M. M. Drummond, 'Stephens, Philip', HoP, Commons, 1754-90 + H. B. Carter, 'The Royal Society and the voyage of HMS Endeavour, 1768-71', Notes and Records of the Royal Society, 49 (1995), 245-60 + C. J. Feret, Fulham old and new (1900) + will, TNA: PRO, PROB 11/1507
Archives BL, letters to second Lord Hardwicke, Add. MSS 35606-35624 + BL, letters and orders to Lord Hood, Add. MSS 35193-35195 + NMM, letters to Lord Keppel + NMM, letters to Lord Sandwich
Likenesses  W. Beechey, oils, exh. RA 1796, Gov. Art Coll.; on loan to NMM [see illus.] · miniature, 1796 (after W. Beechey), NMM · J. Collyer, stipple (after W. Beechey), BM; repro. in J. Colnett, Voyage round Cape Horn (1798), 4 · oils, NMM





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