Frederic Wake-Walker

Admiral Sir William Frederic Wake-Walker (24 March 1888 – 24 September 1945) was a British admiral who served in the Royal Navy during World War I and World War II. He took a leading part in the evacuation at Dunkirk (Operation Dynamo) and the destruction of the .

Early life and education Born William Frederic Wake-Walker, he was the son of Frederic George Arthur Wake-Walker and Mary Eleanor Forster and the grandson of Admiral Sir Baldwin Wake Walker, who was Surveyor of the Navy from 1848 to 1861.

After attending Haileybury school, Wake-Walker entered the Royal Naval College at Dartmouth as a cadet in 1903, and went to sea the following year as midshipman aboard , the flagship of the 1st Cruiser Squadron.

World War I By the start of World War I, Wake-Walker had risen to the rank of lieutenant, and served as torpedo lieutenant on from 1913 to 1915. He was promoted to lieutenant-commander in July 1916 and after training at , was appointed to the new battleship , serving in her until the end of the war.

The Admiralty action was heard by the Exchequer Court of Canada (Quebec Admiralty District), which held that Wake-Walker was liable. Wake-Walker appealed to the Supreme Court of Canada, which upheld the finding of liability on a 3-2 majority. Speaking for the majority, Justice Davis held that when a vessel under steam collides with a moored vessel, the commander of the vessel under steam is presumed liable for the collision, and has the onus of proving that he was not negligent. Wake-Walker had not done so. In addition, the trial judge had found actual fault by Wake-Walker in his navigation of Dragon and there was no basis to set aside that finding on appeal. Wake-Walker then appealed to the Judicial Committee of the Imperial Privy Council, at that time the highest court of appeal for the British Empire. That court dismissed the appeal. Speaking for the Judicial Committee, Viscount Sankey agreed with the courts below that Wake-Walker had not discharged the onus to prove that the accident had been inevitable. For his part in the destruction of Bismarck, Wake-Walker was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire. who married Sir Geoffrey Eley of East Bergholt, and Capt. Christopher Baldwin Hughes Wake-Walker (1920–1998), who married Anne (1920−2020), daughter of the 7th Earl Spencer and aunt of Diana, Princess of Wales.

He died unexpectedly at his home in London on 24 September 1945 at the age of 57