Background
Eric Geddeswas born in Agra, India, on September 26, 1875, the son of a civil engineer.
Eric Geddeswas born in Agra, India, on September 26, 1875, the son of a civil engineer.
After graduation from the Oxford Military College, Cowley, Geddes spurned a career in the Royal Engineers and instead departed for the United States in 1891.
He returned after four unspectacular years to Scotland, but quickly headed out to India to manage a forestry estate. Geddes returned to England in 1906 in order to work for the North Eastern Railway.
In August 1914, Geddes raised a battalion from the employees of the North Eastern, later known as the Seventeenth Royal Northumberland Fusiliers. The following year he served as deputy director-general of munitions supply, and was asked to investigate the obstacles that impeded the flow of arms to the front in France. In this capacity he won the complete trust of David Lloyd George, and in 1916 he was appointed director-general of transportation on the staff of the commander in chief, British Army in France, Sir Douglas Haig, and knighted. Next came the post of inspector-general of transport for all theaters of the war, with the honorary rank of major general. In May 1917, Geddes began a relatively new career as controller of the navy and an additional member of the Board of Admiralty with the temporary and honorary rank of vice admiral. On July 20, 1917, Geddes brought his enormous energy, courage, and initiative to the post of first lord of the Admiralty. He was quickly elected Unionist member of Parliament for the borough of Cambridge in a special by-election; in 1918 he was reelected in the general elections.
Geddes at first was treated with suspicion at the Admiralty. His insistence on appearing in full naval uniform did not sit well with other members of the board: Lord Esher thought it to be right out of Gilbert and Sullivan, "a general today, and an admiral tomorrow." In all fairness, it must be said that Geddes simply "loathed" the idea of going to the Admiralty, and that he did so only because of the pressure applied to him by Lloyd George and Sir John Jellicoe. Geddes proved an able administrator. Specifically, he pushed for the adoption of the convoy system against the advice of most ad-mirals; by September 1917, he could announce that "the convoy system has undoubtedly been a success." Unfortunately, in December 1917, there came a parting of the ways with Jellicoe over the organization of the naval staff and personnel appointments. Moreover, as Geddes put it, "Lord Jellicoe did not evidence progressive adaptability and effectiveness in decision." In a rather clumsy display of lack of tact, Geddes forced Jellicoe's dismissal through a curt letter on Christmas Eve, 1917. Jellicoe, not without pique, believed "that the true reason is that I will not agree to the Navy being run by an autocrat like a Railway!!" And although Jellicoe's successor. Admiral David Beatty, favored retaining Geddes at his post, it was not to be: Lloyd George transferred the former first lord to the Imperial War Cabinet instead.
Geddes retired from government service on December 11, 1918, but returned in January 1919 as minister of transport, where he was instrumental in the amalgamation of Britain's railroads into four major groups. As chairman of the committee on national expenditure, Geddes recommended a drastic reduction in government spending of almost £87 million ("Geddes Axe"). He left politics in 1922 for the chairmanship of the Dunlop Rubber Company; later he was to pioneer civilian aviation as the first chairman of Imperial Airways. The hard-driving Geddes died on June 22, 1937, on Albourne Place, Hassocks, Sussex.
Geddes married Gwendolen, daughter of Reverend A. Stokes, in 1900. They had three sons, including Sir Reay Geddes, former chairman of the Dunlop Rubber Company. Sir Eric Campbell Geddes died in June 1937, aged 61, after several years of declining health.