George Stephen Ritchie

Rear-Admiral George Stephen Ritchie CB DSC (30 October 1914 – 8 May 2012 ) was a British admiral noted for his cartographic and hydrographic work and as an author of many publications on hydrography.

Naval career
Ritchie was born in Burnley, 1914, of Scottish parents, Sir Douglas Ritchie and Lady Margaret Stephen Ritchie. He was educated at the Royal Naval College, Dartmouth from the age of 13, from where he went to sea at the age of 17. In 1936 he joined the Surveying Service, being appointed to the old coal-burning surveying ship, HMS Herald (1918), operating in the South China Sea, surveying the coasts of Malaya and Borneo. In 1939 he returned to home waters, serving in HMS Jason, and then worked in Labrador on HMS Franklin''.

In 1942, during the Second World War, Ritchie, then a Lieutenant, was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross (DSC) for bravery whilst surveying beaches behind enemy lines near the Gulf of Bomba. He evaded Italian soldiers and escaped in a collapsible canoe during the raid on Tobruk. As the allied forces moved up through Italy in 1943, Ritchie headed a mobile survey unit on the east coast, close behind attacking forces, surveying ports as they were taken.

From that time he worked continuously in that branch of the Royal Navy travelling all over the World and commanding four of HM surveying Ships: HMS Challenger (1931) (1950-1951) on a world circling voyage with scientists on board; HMNZS Lachlan (1953-1956), the New Zealand survey ship; HMS Dalrymple (K427) (1959), in the Persian Gulf and HMS Vidal (1963-1965) in the West Indies and North Atlantic. In 1951 on the survey ship HMS Challenger, recorded the deepest part of the ocean trench depth Challenger Deep of 5,960 fathoms (10,900 m, 35,761 ft) using both wire and echo sounding.

Between his sea assignments, Ritchie had a series of headquarters apppointments. From 1951 - 1954, he was Superintendent of the Oceanographic Branch. In 1957, on his return from New Zealand, where he had been promoted Captain, he became Assistant Hydrographer (2), and in 1960 Assistant Hydrographer (1). In 1966 he was promoted to the rank of rear admiral and appointed to the post of Hydrographer of the Navy which he held for five years, responsible for the operations of the RN Surveying Squadron and the publication of the Admiralty Chart worldwide series. In the same year he received a Companion of the Bath.

During his period as hydrographer, operations were fully transferred to Taunton, improved printing facilities were installed, allowing four-colour printing of charts, and metrication was started. In 1967, Ritchie led the United Kingdom delegation to the Ninth International Hydrographic Conference. In the same year he published The Admiralty Chart, a history of British Naval Hydrography in the Nineteenth Century.

Post naval career
After his retirement from the Navy in 1971, Ritchie spent 18 months as a senior research fellow at Southampton University. he was then elected first in 1972 and again in 1977 as president of the International Hydrographic Bureau, thus spending 10 years in the Principality of Monaco, in the service of the then 50 Member States of the International Hydrographic Organization.

Admiral Ritchie received the Founder's Medal of the Royal Geographical Society in 1972, the Gold Medal of the Royal Institute of Navigation (he was president from 1970 to 1972), the Silver Medal of the Royal Society of Arts and the Prix Manley-Bendall from the Academie de Marine. He was an honorary member of the Challenger Society for Marine Science and an Emeritus Member of the Hydrographic Society, of which he had been the first president. .

After his return from Monaco he lived with his wife, Disa, in the family house built by his grandfather in the fishing village of Collieston, Aberdeenshire. The couple had married in 1942 in South Africa, and had three sons, John Patrick and Mark, and one daughter, Tertia. He was a prolific author of books and other publications. His books include Challenger - The Life of a Survey Ship (1957), The Admiralty Chart (1967), his autobiography, No Day too Long: An Hydrographer’s Tale (1992) and As it Was (2003). He wrote a regular column describing how hydrography used to be, for the international publication Hydro International from 1985–1995. A comprehensive list of his publications is given in the obituary that appeared in Imago Mundi.

In 2009 he donated his collection on the history of hydrography to the Robinson Library at Newcastle University.

He died on 8 May 2012 in Collieston, Aberdeenshire.