Rear-Admiral Spencer Login

Spencer Henry Metcalfe Login CVO (1851-1909) was the youngest son of John and Lena Login. He was born in India but the family returned to England when he was only three. He was educated at Wellington College, Berkshire where, according to his mother, the headmaster Edward Benson, later Archbishop of Canterbury, “gave the boy a large portion of his personal attention, as, being in perpetual scrapes, and very idle at his lessons, he appeared to require caning on an average once a week!”

Login joined the navy as a midshipman in 1865 and, in typically boyish fashion, wasn’t much of a correspondent. His mother complained that, “He actually changed his ship, being drafted from the Flag-ship on the Pacific Station to HMS Pylades stationed on the SE coast of America, without sending a line; so that I had absolutely to get one of the attaches to the Ministry at Rio de Janeiro to find out if he really was on board that ship, and make him write.”

He was away from home for five years and when he returned to Britain, on HMS Orontes, his mother couldn’t wait and chartered a sailing boat to take her out to the ship. An officer escorted her down to the saloon to find her son. “A man in naval uniform, nearly six foot high and very broad in the chest, came in. ‘There’s your son,’ said the First-Lieutenant. I was most aggrieved at the tall stranger, who still advanced, shutting out with his bulky form all sight of the boy I was searching for eagerly. The intruder came to a dead stop, and stared blankly at me and my companions, while I attempted vainly to peer over his shoulder by standing on tip-toe. The First-Lieutenant, grasping the situation, exclaimed, ‘But this is your son, Lady Login! Did you not know him?' Was it wonderful that I had failed to do so? He had left me a boy, and had returned a man! Not many mothers, I think have had to be re-introduced to their son by a total stranger.”

Login, moved steadily up the ranks, becoming a lieutenant in 1874, commander in 1885, captain in 1895 and rear-admiral in 1906. He served aboard HMS Active in the Second Anglo-Ashanti War in 1873 and took part in the Suakin Expedition to the Sudan in 1885. He commanded HMS Anson, the first mastless battleship, in 1889 and is listed as commanding HMS Victory from March to May 1905.

According to his obituary, he played for England in an international rugby match in 1875. The first international had only been played four years earlier and the only match England played in 1875 was against Ireland. It was Ireland's first international match and England won 7-0.

He was made a Commander of the Royal Victorian Order in 1905. This is an Order of Chivalry in the personal gift of the monarch and followed the period, mentioned in his obituary, that he served as ADC to Edward VII.

Login was promoted to Rear-Admiral on 1 January 1906 and his last command was the division of the Home Fleet at Portsmouth. He died in January 1909.

Principal Sources: Lady Login's Recollections and the obituary in Old Lore Miscellany