SIR JOHN KNOX (J. K.) LAUGHTON (1830-1915)

The principal founder of the Navy Records Society, was born in Liverpool, son of a former master mariner. He graduated as a wrangler in mathematics from Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, and entered the Royal Navy as an instructor. In 1853 he joined the Baltic-bound Royal George, and following the Crimean War was transferred to the Calcutta, which participated in the Second Opium War. His sea-going career ended in 1866, when he commenced teaching at the Royal Naval College, Portsmouth.  He authored acclaimed pioneering texts on meteorology and nautical surveying, and in 1873 became head of the department of meteorology at the new Royal Naval College, Greenwich.  Having authored Essay on Naval Tactics (1873) and The Scientific Studyof Naval History (1874), he in 1876 added naval history to his teaching responsibilities.  A prolific author in the field, he was the progenitor of the study of naval history in its modern form. In 1885 he was appointed professor of modern history at King’s College, London. He founded the NRS with a long-standing friend, Admiral Cyprian Bridge (1839-1924), director of naval intelligence at the Admiralty. Many distinguished people supported the venture, including the renowned American naval strategist and commentator Alfred Thayer Mahan, whose writings helped to kindle popular interest in naval topics, and the famed historian Samuel Rawson Gardiner. As the Society’s secretary from 1893-1912, Laughton played a pivotal role: directing the NRS, arranging publications, recruiting members, and securing respected scholars to edit its volumes. During the years leading up to the First World War, when Germany was striving to develop an ocean-going force to challenge Britain’s mastery of the seas, the NRS (with a membership of around 500 that included opinion-formers from the armed services, academia, politics, and the press) deliberately concentrated on the publication of historical sources which reflected contemporary issues in order to influence policy makers. Laughton edited the first two volumes in the NRS series of publications, State Papers Relating to the Defeatof the Spanish Armada (1894) as well as Vols. 32, 38, and 39 (Letters and Papers of Charles, Lord Barham, 1758-1813).  He co-edited vols. 6 (Journal of Rear Admiral Bartholomew James, 1725-1728) and 31 (The Recollections of Commander James Anthony Gardner, 1775-1814). As the author of over 900 entries in the Dictionary of National Biography, including virtually all the naval memoirs, he left an enduring legacy and stamped his imprimatur on the interpretation of Britain’s past naval personalities for generations to come.  He was knighted in 1907, and in 1910 received the Chesney gold medal of the Royal United Service Institution as well as a testimonial (marking his 80th birthday) from the future George V and many celebrated admirals. As he had wished, when the time came his ashes were committed to the deep at the mouth of the Thames. One of his daughters, Dame Elvira [Vera] Laughton Mathews (1888-1959), was director of the Women’s Royal Naval Service, 1939-47. 

     Further information may be obtained from the following works by former NRS secretary Professor Andrew Lambert: The Foundations of Naval History: John Knox Laughton, the Royal Navy, and the historical profession (1998), Letters and Papers of Professor Sir John Knox Laughton (2002; Vol. 143 in the NRS publications series), and the biographical entry on Laughton in The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (ODNB).