COLOMB, PHILIP HOWARD British vice-admiral, historian, critic and inventor, the son of Gen. G. T. Colomb, was born in Scotland, on May 29, i831. He entered the navy in 1846, and served first at sea off Portugal in 1847; after wards, in 1848, in the Mediterranean, and from 1848 to 185i in operations against piracy in Chinese waters; during the Bur mese War of 1852-53 ; in the Arctic Expedition of 1854; and in the Baltic during the Russian War, taking part in the attack on Sveaborg. From 1859 to 1863 he served as flag-lieutenant to Rear-Admiral Sir Thomas Pasley at Devonport. Between 1858 and 1868 he was employed in home waters on a variety of spe cial services, chiefly connected with gunnery, signalling and the tactical characteristics and capacities of steam warships. From 1868 to 187o he commanded the "Dryad," and was engaged in the suppression of the slave trade. In 1874, while captain of the "Audacious" he served for three years as flag-captain to Vice-Admiral Ryder in China ; and finally he was appointed, in 188o, to command the "Thunderer" in the Mediterranean. Next year he was appointed captain of the steam reserve at Portsmouth; and after serving three years in _that capacity, he re mained at Portsmouth as flag-captain to the commander-in-chief until 1886, when he was retired by superannuation before he had attained flag rank. Subsequently he became rear-admiral, and finally vice-admiral on the retired list.
Colomb was one of the first sailors to perceive the vast changes which must ensue from the introduction of steam into the navy, which would necessitate a new system of signals and a new method of tactics. He set himself to devise the former as far back as 1858, but his system of signals was not adopted by the navy until 1867.
What he had done for signals Colomb next did for tactics. Having first determined by experiment—for which he was given special facilities by the Admiralty—what are the manoeuvring powers of ships propelled by steam under varying conditions of speed and helm, he proceeded to devis€ a system of tactics based on these data. In the sequel he prepared a new evolutionary signal book, which was adopted by the British navy. His conclusions on the chief causes of collisions at sea, though stoutly combated in many quarters at the outset, were ultimately embodied in the in ternational code of regulations adopted by the leading maritime nations on the recommendations of a conference at Washington in 1889.
Colomb helped to initiate an equally momentous change in the popular, and even the professional, way of regarding sea-power and its conditions in his book on Naval Warfare (1891). The central idea of his teaching was that naval supremacy is the condition precedent of all vigorous military offensive across the sea, and, conversely, that no vigorous military offensive can be undertaken across the seas until the naval force of the enemy has been accounted for—either destroyed or defeated and compelled to withdraw to the shelter of its own ports, or at least driven from the seas by the menace of a force it dare not encounter in the open. He worked quite independently of Admiral Mahan, and his chief conclusions were published before Admiral Mahan's works appeared.
He died on Oct. 13,1899, at Steeple Court, Botley, Hants.
His younger brother, SIR JOHN COLOMB 0838-19°9), entered the Royal Marines in 1854, and retired in 1869. His books on Colonial Defence and Colonial Opinions (1873), The Defence of Great and Greater Britain (1879), Naval Intelligence and the Protection of Commerce (1881) , The Use and the Application of Marine Forces (1883), Imperial Federation: Naval and Military (1887), followed later by other similar works, made him well known among the rising school of Imperialists, and he was re turned to parliament (1886-92) as Conservative member for Bow, and afterwards (1895-1906) for Great Yarmouth. In 1887 he was created C.M.G., and in 1888 K.C.M.G. He died in London on May 27, 1909. In Kerry, Ireland, he was a large landowner, and became a member of the Irish Privy Council (1903), and in 1906 he sat on the royal commission dealing with congested dis tricts.
See H. d'Egville, Imperial Defence and Closer Union: record of the life-work of Colomb