Rear Admiral James Goldrick, who has died aged 64, was a rare combination of practical seaman, notable commander and leader, and internationally recognised scholar.
James Vincent Purcell Goldrick was born in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia on August 8 1958 to Caroline and Peter Goldrick, a naval fighter pilot who had served in the Second World War and been wounded in the Korean War.
Despite frequent moves brought about by service life, young James enjoyed a loving and intellectual upbringing with a thread of naval discipline, and he attended a series of Jesuit schools which suited his precocious intellect.
In 1974 he followed his father into the Royal Australian Navy (RAN) , and was soon recognised as both a competent officer and a naval historian.
When in 1976 the RAN decided to complete the education of its young officers by sending them to university, Goldrick seized the chance to study for a BA at the University of New South Wales, beginning his first book, The King’s Ships Were at Sea (1984) about the war in the North Sea in the First World War, which he finished while aide-de-camp to the Governor-General of Australia in 1982-83.
The King’s Ships was the first of many books and contributions to professional journals, including the United States Naval Institute Proceedings, and the British Naval Review, in which between 1978 and 2022 he wrote 55 Letters from Australia under the pseudonym “Master Ned”, and twice won the Guinness Prize for best article.
Later he gained a Master of Letters from the University of New England, graduated from the advanced management program of Harvard Business School, and was awarded an honorary doctorate at the University of New South Wales in 2006.
Goldrick specialised in anti-submarine warfare and saw sea service in the Royal Australian Navy and on loan with the Royal Navy – in the patrol vessel Alderney and the frigates Sirius and HMAS Swan and Darwin and, in 1985-86, in the destroyer Liverpool.
Liverpool, on deployments to the South Atlantic and exercises around Northern Europe, was not a happy ship, her base port having been changed while she was deployed: many of her Scottish ratings, who preferred small ships and only tolerated the occasional frigate if they were unlucky, were disgruntled.
Goldrick thrived on the analysis of this difficult mixture, and his cheerful presence around the ship and “G’day” followed by the sailor’s name (which he invariably knew) did much to lift the ship’s company’s morale.
He then served as the second in command executive officer of the Australian landing craft Tarakan and the destroyer Perth, and as commanding officer of the patrol boat HMAS Cessnock.
In 1992, (unlike most high-performing officers) Goldrick did not attend a staff course but instead, encouraged by Professor John Hattendorf, became a research scholar in the United States, and began a long and profitable association with US Naval War College.
Next, as commanding officer of the frigate HMAS Sydney he showed himself to be an even-tempered leader with a sincere interest in the welfare and advancement of his officers and sailors. “Your first command,” he said, “is about proving yourself to yourself, and every subsequent command is about helping others prove themselves to themselves.” He could, however, be formidable and unintentionally intimidating; one of his officers joked that “it was like having Dumbledore as your captain”.
Rear Admiral James Goldrick, who has died aged 64, was a rare combination of practical seaman, notable commander and leader, and internationally recognised scholar.
James Vincent Purcell Goldrick was born in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia on August 8 1958 to Caroline and Peter Goldrick, a naval fighter pilot who had served in the Second World War and been wounded in the Korean War .
Despite frequent moves brought about by service life, young James enjoyed a loving and intellectual upbringing with a thread of naval discipline, and he attended a series of Jesuit schools which suited his precocious intellect.
In 1974 he followed his father into the Royal Australian Navy (RAN) , and was soon recognised as both a competent officer and a naval historian.
When in 1976 the RAN decided to complete the education of its young officers by sending them to university, Goldrick seized the chance to study for a BA at the University of New South Wales, beginning his first book, The King’s Ships Were at Sea (1984) about the war in the North Sea in the First World War, which he finished while aide-de-camp to the Governor-General of Australia in 1982-83.
The King’s Ships was the first of many books and contributions to professional journals, including the United States Naval Institute Proceedings, and the British Naval Review, in which between 1978 and 2022 he wrote 55 Letters from Australia under the pseudonym “Master Ned”, and twice won the Guinness Prize for best article.
Later he gained a Master of Letters from the University of New England, graduated from the advanced management program of Harvard Business School, and was awarded an honorary doctorate at the University of New South Wales in 2006.
Goldrick specialised in anti-submarine warfare and saw sea service in the Royal Australian Navy and on loan with the Royal Navy – in the patrol vessel Alderney and the frigates Sirius and HMAS Swan and Darwin and, in 1985-86, in the destroyer Liverpool.
Liverpool, on deployments to the South Atlantic and exercises around Northern Europe, was not a happy ship, her base port having been changed while she was deployed: many of her Scottish ratings, who preferred small ships and only tolerated the occasional frigate if they were unlucky, were disgruntled.
Goldrick thrived on the analysis of this difficult mixture, and his cheerful presence around the ship and “G’day” followed by the sailor’s name (which he invariably knew) did much to lift the ship’s company’s morale.
He then served as the second in command executive officer of the Australian landing craft Tarakan and the destroyer Perth, and as commanding officer of the patrol boat HMAS Cessnock.
In 1992, (unlike most high-performing officers) Goldrick did not attend a staff course but instead, encouraged by Professor John Hattendorf, became a research scholar in the United States, and began a long and profitable association with US Naval War College.
Next, as commanding officer of the frigate HMAS Sydney he showed himself to be an even-tempered leader with a sincere interest in the welfare and advancement of his officers and sailors. “Your first command,” he said, “is about proving yourself to yourself, and every subsequent command is about helping others prove themselves to themselves.” He could, however, be formidable and unintentionally intimidating; one of his officers joked that “it was like having Dumbledore as your captain”.
In retirement he was in international demand as a writer and speaker on maritime and defence matters. In 2015 he was a visiting fellow at All Souls College, Oxford, and in 2020 he was awarded the Hattendorf prize in the US for research in maritime history.
On his return from the US, Goldrick began many rounds of treatment for leukaemia. The naval historian Professor Geoffrey Till paid tribute to his indomitable spirit.
At UNSW he met Ruth Wilson, then studying to be a librarian, and they married in 1989. In the words of a classmate, Commodore Roger Boyce, “it was the meeting of two great libraries”. She survives him with their two sons.
