Jack Marriott

Who was Jack Marriott?

Captain John Peter Ralph Marriott CMG was a British Royal Navy officer.

Marriott was the son of Major Charles Frederick Marriott of the British Army and his wife Isabella. He married Margaret Murray, daughter of the oceanographer Sir John Murray, and they had two sons, John and Peter. In 1894, he joined the Royal Navy as a Naval Cadet. As a junior officer he served in the sloop HMS Beagle in the South Atlantic, the light cruiser HMS Hyacinth, flagship of the East Indies and Egyptian Squadron, the armoured cruiser HMS Drake, flagship of the 5th Cruiser Squadron, and the cadet training cruiser HMS Cornwall. For two years he served on the staff of the Royal Naval College, Osborne.

In June 1914, he was promoted Commander and became executive officer of the cruiser HMS Charybdis. In Gallipoli, he was attached to the staff of the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps, and was mentioned in dispatches. He then became Naval Assistant to the First Sea Lord, Rosslyn Wemyss, at the Admiralty in London, with the rank of Acting Captain.

Representing Britain at the signing of the Armistice in a railway carriage in Compiègne Forest on 11 November 1918, he was witness to the end of World War I and a marked victory for the Allies. He was confirmed in the rank of Captain in December 1918. He later attended the Paris Peace Conference, 1919. In 1920 he was appointed Naval Attaché in Tokyo. He voluntarily retired in 1922 following the "Geddes Axe", hoping that by so doing he would save from compulsory retirement an officer who was less able to afford it. He was recalled for special service in Egypt during the period of tension over Abyssinia.