[6] Beatty was educated at Kilkenny College and in 1882 entered Burney's Naval Academy at Gosport, which was a 'crammer' for boys wishing to take the entrance examinations for the Royal Navy.

[7] Beatty joined the Royal Navy as a cadet passing into the training ship HMS Britannia tenth out of ninety-nine candidates in January 1884.

[8] Beatty's letters home made no complaint about the poor living conditions in Britannia, and generally he was extrovert, even aggressive, and resented discipline.

[9] Beatty was given orders to join the China Station in January 1886, but the posting did not appeal to his mother, who wrote to Lord Charles Beresford, then a senior naval officer, member of parliament and personal friend, to use his influence to obtain something better.

[10] Beatty was, in February 1886, instead appointed to HMS Alexandra, flagship of Admiral the Duke of Edinburgh, Queen Victoria's second son, who was Commander-in-Chief of the Mediterranean Squadron.

[11] This proved an excellent social opening for Beatty, who established a longstanding relationship with the Duke's eldest daughter, Marie, and with other members of the court.

An attempt was therefore made to send more troops from Tientsin, where British ships had been joined by French, German, Russian, American, Austrian, Italian and Japanese.

[25] On 11 June 1900, Beatty and 150 men from HMS Barfleur landed as part of a force of 2,400 defending Tientsin from 15,000 Chinese troops plus Boxers.

[27] Beatty had returned from leave after the Sudan campaign, but finding life in Ireland at the family home not to his taste, stayed instead with his brother at Newmarket, Suffolk.

The location allowed him good hunting, and access to aristocratic houses where his recent heroic reputation from the campaign made him an honoured guest.

Out hunting one day he chanced to meet Ethel Tree, daughter of Chicago department store founder Marshall Field.

Beatty did not respond until after surgery on his arm in September 1900 when he wrote, "I landed from China with my heart full of rage, and swore I did not care if I ever saw you again, or if I were killed or not.

Ronald later became a member of parliament and, during the Second World War became a link between the British and United States governments, lending his country house, Ditchley Park near Oxford, to Winston Churchill for weekend visits when the official residences were considered unsafe.

[20] Beatty worked hard to raise efficiency so that she was highly rated in gunnery and other competitions by the time he left the ship 19 December 1902.

Ethel decided not to be left behind so rented the Capua Palace on Malta, home port of the Mediterranean Fleet, where she became part of the island's high society.

[20] At the request of Alfred Winsloe, the Fourth Sea Lord, he was promoted to rear-admiral on 1 January 1910 by a special order in council since he had not completed the requisite time as a captain.

[20] Beatty, as a rapidly promoted war hero, with no financial worries and with a degree of support in Royal circles, felt more confident than most naval officers in standing firm on requesting a posting nearer home.

He was approaching two years on half pay (which would trigger automatic retirement from the navy) when on 8 January 1912 his career was saved by the new First Lord of the Admiralty, Winston Churchill.

Appointments by influence were common in the navy at this time, but the significance of Beatty's choice lay in Seymour's relative inexperience as a signals officer, which later resulted in difficulties in battle.

Beatty is reported to have remarked (to his Flag Captain, Ernle Chatfield, later First Sea Lord in the early 1930s), "there seems to be something wrong with our bloody ships today," after two of them had exploded within half an hour during the battle.

[46] In this capacity he was involved in negotiating the Washington Naval Treaty of 1922 in which it was agreed that the United States, Britain and Japan should set their navies in a ratio of 5:5:3, with France and Italy maintaining smaller fleets.

[50] During the First Labour Government of 1924, with Japan increasingly hostile to the UK, Beatty lobbied the Clynes Committee for construction of the Singapore Naval Base to continue.

[52] Supported by the First Lord of the Admiralty William Bridgeman, he clashed with the new Chancellor of the Exchequer, Winston Churchill, once again over the number of cruisers required by the Royal Navy.

[46] In 1926 Beatty was considered for the post of Governor General of Canada but was rejected by the Colonial Secretary Leo Amery as he had "no manners and an impossible American wife".

In July 1930 he denounced the London Naval Treaty in the House of Lords as "a great and deplorable blunder to which we are about to be committed by signing away the sea power by which the British Empire came into being".

[62] Already suffering from heart failure, and sick with influenza, Beatty defied doctors' orders and left his bed to act as a pallbearer, saying, "What will the Navy say if I fail to attend Jellicoe's funeral?"

[76] In 2022 U.S. Air Force Academy military historian Chuck Steele found Beatty's failures to improve communications between vessels before Jutland more glaring in light of his own personal awareness of how that had kept earlier victories at Heligoland Bight and Dogger Bank from being as overwhelming as they could have been.

Steele also argues that Beatty should also have known how to effectively use his battle cruisers due to the role they had played in smashing the German East Asia Squadron at the Falkland Islands.

[85] In June 1920, the Great Central Railway gave the name Earl Beatty to one of their newly built 4-6-0 express passenger locomotives, no.

Having thus unburdened himself he fell asleep.At 4.25, soon after we had resumed our position ahead of the Princess Royal, the third ship in the line, the Queen Mary (Captain Prowse) blew up exactly as had the Indefatigable.