Admiral of the Fleet Sir Geoffrey Thomas Phipps Hornby GCB (10 February 1825 – 3 March 1895) was a Royal Navy officer. As a junior officer, he saw action at the capture of Acre in November 1840 during the Egyptian–Ottoman War. As a captain, he was assigned to Vancouver Island with a naval brigade where he found a unit of United States troops ready to take over the San Juan Islands in a dispute that became known as the Pig War. Hornby used his powers of diplomacy to facilitate a peaceful handover of the islands to the United States.
Hornby went on to be Commander-in-Chief, West Africa Squadron, Commander-in-Chief of the Flying Squadron and then Commander-in-Chief, Channel Squadron. After that he became Commander-in-Chief, Mediterranean Fleet, President of the Royal Naval College, Greenwich and finally Commander-in-Chief, Portsmouth.
Early career
thumb|left|Map of the proposed boundaries between the United States and Canada around the San Juan Islands during the [[Pig War (1859)|Pig War]]
Born the son of Admiral Sir Phipps Hornby and Sophia Maria Hornby (daughter of General John Burgoyne), Hornby was educated at Winwick Grammar School and Southwood's School in Plymouth and joined the Royal Navy in March 1837. He was appointed, as a first class volunteer, to the first-rate HMS Princess Charlotte, flagship of the Commander-in-Chief, Mediterranean Fleet and saw action at the capture of Acre in November 1840 during the Egyptian–Ottoman War. He transferred to the fourth-rate HMS Winchester, flagship of the Commander-in-Chief, Cape of Good Hope Station, in August 1842. Hornby used his powers of diplomacy to facilitate a peaceful handover of the islands to the United States. Hornby became Commander-in-Chief of the Flying Squadron, with his flag in the frigate HMS Liverpool, in June 1869 and undertook a circumnavigation of the World to demonstrate that Royal Navy could reach any part of the globe. He went on to be Commander-in-Chief, Mediterranean Fleet, with his flag in the battleship HMS Alexandra, in January 1877. He forced his way through the Dardanelles, despite Turkish protests, in a display of British naval power intended to deter Russian aggression during the Russo-Turkish War. The naval historian Sir William Clowes, who knew him well, wrote that '... he was a natural diplomatist, and an unrivalled tactician; and, to a singular independence and uprightness of character, he added a mastery of technical detail, and a familiarity with contemporary thought and progress that were unusual in those days among officers of his standing'. The historian Ben Wilson has said that Hornby was "the exceptional admiral who eased the Navy's transition from sail to steam". Hornby was appointed a Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath on 12 August 1878.
Promoted to full admiral on 15 June 1879, Hornby became President of the Royal Naval College, Greenwich in March 1881 and went on to be Commander-in-Chief, Portsmouth in November 1882. appointed First and Principal Naval Aide-de-Camp to the Queen on 18 January 1886 and promoted to Admiral of the Fleet on 1 May 1888. He was appointed to the staff of the German emperor Wilhelm II during his visits to England in 1889 and 1890. and died of influenza at Lordington House on 3 March 1895; his ashes were scattered at Compton Church.