Admiral of the Fleet Sir Algernon McLennan Lyons (30 August 1833 – 9 February 1908) was a senior Royal Navy officer who served as first and principal naval aide-de-camp to Queen Victoria.
Lyons also served as commander-in-chief, Pacific Station, commander-in-chief, North America and West Indies Station, and then commander-in-chief, Plymouth.
He was the nephew of Admiral Edmund Lyons, 1st Baron Lyons, who served as commander-in-chief of the Mediterranean Fleet, under whom he served for a time, and the cousin of Richard Lyons, 1st Viscount Lyons, and Richard Lyons Pearson, assistant commissioner of the Metropolitan Police.
Family
Lyons was born at Bombay on 30 August 1833. He was the second son of Lieutenant General Humphrey Lyons (1833–1908) and his first wife, Eliza, daughter of Henry Bennett. Lyons's uncle was Edmund Lyons, 1st Baron Lyons, via whom he was the cousin of Richard Lyons, 1st Viscount Lyons. He was also the cousin of Richard Lyons Pearson, Assistant Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police. Lyons's grandfather was Captain John Lyons of Antigua.
Lyons was privately educated in Twickenham, Middlesex. He joined the Royal Navy in 1847.
Naval career
Lyons was appointed to the fifth-rate HMS Cambrian on the East Indies and China Station and then transferred to the second-rate HMS Albion, flagship of his uncle, Sir Edmund Lyons, who was Second-in-Command of the Mediterranean Fleet, in 1853. He was promoted to commander on 9 August. He became Commander-in-Chief, Pacific Station, with his flag in the armoured ship HMS Swiftsure, in December 1881. He became Commander-in-Chief of the North America and West Indies Station in September 1886: in this position, his flagship was the central battery ship HMS Bellerophon, in September 1886. and appointed a Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath in the 1889 Birthday Honours.
Admiral of the Fleet
He was appointed Commander-in-Chief, Plymouth, in June 1892. He became a Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath in the 1897 Diamond Jubilee Honours and was promoted Admiral of the Fleet on 23 August 1897. In February 1895, he was appointed First and Principal Naval Aide-de-Camp to Queen Victoria. and Justice of the Peace for Glamorgan.
thumb|[[Kilvrough Manor, the Lyons family home in Glamorgan]]
Marriage
Lyons married Louisa Jane Penrice (bapt. 1853), daughter and heir of Thomas Penrice, at Pennard Church in Kilvrough on 3 September 1879: they had two sons and two daughters.