F. G. Loring

Frederick George Loring (1869–1951) was an English naval officer and writer, and an early expert in wireless telegraphy. Family Loring was born on 11 March 1869 in Ryde, Isle of Wight (then still part of Hampshire), the eldest son of Admiral Sir William Loring (d. 1895), and his wife, Frances Louisa Adams. His grandfather, Sir John Wentworth Loring (1775–1852), had been the lieutenant-governor of the Royal Naval College, Portsmouth in 1819–37, and his great-grandfather, Joshua Loring (1716–1881), a colonial American commodore in the Royal Navy, who moved to London after 1776. In 1896 he married Charlotte Elizabeth Arbuthnot (1862–1933), daughter of the Hon. James Edward Arbuthnot of Mauritius; they had two daughters, Evelyn Frances and Iris. In 1949 he remarried, to Margaret Mackenzie, daughter of Montague S. Napier. Loring died on 7 September 1951 in Foots Cray, Kent. Career Loring served as a sub-lieutenant on the royal yacht Victoria and Albert in 1891. As a lieutenant he was aboard HMS Victoria when she was rammed and sunk by HMS Camperdown off Tripoli on 22 June 1893 with much loss of life, and was awarded a bronze medal by the Royal Humane Society for saving two lives. In 1896, he qualified as a torpedo lieutenant and joined the staff of HMS Defiance, the schoolship, at Devonport, where he was among the first to specialize in wireless telegraphy. He was put in charge of Admiralty shore wireless stations, and in 1904 selected to accompany Guglielmo Marconi to America for wireless experiments. He retired in December 1909 with the rank of commander, having transferred to the Post Office, where he was inspector of wireless telegraphy responsible for the operating staff until his retirement in 1930. He was appointed a civil OBE in 1926 for his services to the development of radio. In 1930, he continued his career in the International Marine Radio Company, where he became a director. He finally retired from the company in 1950.