ANSON, GEORGE ANSON, BARON (1697-1762), British admiral, was born April 23 1697. His mother was the sister-in law of Lord Chancellor Macclesfield. George Anson entered the Navy in Feb. 1712, and received rapid promotion. He com manded the squadron which was sent to attack the Spanish pos sessions in South America in 1740. Anson's squadron sailed later than had been intended, and was very ill-fitted. It consisted of six ships, which were reduced by successive disasters to his flagship the "Centurion." The lateness of the season forced him to round Cape Horn in very stormy weather, and the navigating instruments of the time did not allow of exact observation.
By the time Anson reached the island of Juan Fernandez in June 1741, his six ships had been reduced to three, while the strength of his crews had fallen from 961 to 335. In the absence of any effective Spanish force on the coast he was able to harass the enemy, and to capture the town of Paita Nov. 13-15 1741. He was compelled at last to collect all the surviving personnel of the squadron in the "Centurion." He rested at the island of Tinian, and then made his way to Macao in Nov. 1742. After considerable difficulties with the Chinese, he sailed again with his one remaining vessel to cruise for one of the rich galleons which conducted the trade between Mexico and the Philippines, and captured an immensely rich prize, the "Nuestra Senora de Covadonga," which was met off Cape Espiritu Santo June 20 1743. Anson took his prize back to Macao, sold her cargo to the Chinese, keeping the specie, and sailed for England,. which he reached by the Cape of Good Hope on June 15 To the world at large Anson is known as the commander of the voyage round the world, in which success was won by in domitable perseverance, unshaken firmness, and infinite re source. But he was also the severe and capable administrator who during years of hard work at the Admiralty did more than any other to raise the Navy from the state of corruption and indiscipline into which it had fallen during the first half of the 18th century. As subordinate under the duke, or Lord Sandwich, and as first lord himself, Anson was at the Admiralty with one short break from 1745 till his death in 1762. The naval ad ministration was thoroughly overhauled. The dockyards were brought into far better order, and though corruption was not banished, it was much reduced. The Navy board was compelled to render accounts. A system of regulating promotion to flag rank, which has been in the main followed ever since, was intro duced. The Navy Discipline act was revised in 1749, and re mained unaltered till 1865. Courts martial were put on a sound footing; inspections of the fleet and the dockyards were estab lished, and the corps of marines was created in 1755. The progressive improvement which raised the Navy to the high state of efficiency it attained in later years dates from Anson's presence at the Admiralty.
In 1747 he, without ceasing to be a member of the board, commanded the Channel fleet which on May 3 scattered a large French convoy bound to the East, and West Indies, in an action off Cape Finisterre. In society Anson seems to have been cold and taciturn. The sneers of Horace Walpole, and the savage attack of Smollett in The Adventures of an Atom, are animated by personal or political spite. His title of Baron Anson of Sober ton was given him in 1747, but became extinct on his death. There is a fine portrait of the admiral by Reynolds. He died June 6 1762.
See a life of Lord Anson, inaccurate in some details but valuable and interesting, published by Sir John Barrow in 1839. The standard account of his voyage round the world is that by his chaplain Richard Walter (1748) , often reprinted. A share in the work has been claimed on dubious grounds for Benjamin Robins, the mathematician. Another and much inferior account was published in 1745 by Pascoe Thomas, the schoolmaster of the "Centurion."