William Agnew (Royal Navy officer) William Agnew (Royal Navy officer) Vice-Admiral Sir William Gladstone Agnew (2 December 1898 – 12 July 1960) was an officer of the Royal Navy. He served during the First and Second World Wars, and rose to the rank of vice-admiral. Agnew was the fifth son of Charles Morland Agnew and Evelyn Mary Agnew, née Naylor. Agnew was educated at Royal Naval College, Osborne, and at Britannia Royal Naval College, Dartmouth, joining the Navy in 1911. During the First World War he served aboard the battleships and , as well as the destroyer . During the inter war years Agnew served
Royal Naval College, Greenwich building. The Navy's Department of Nuclear Science and Technology opened on the college premises in 1959, and JASON, the department's research and training reactor, was commissioned in the King William building in 1962. In 1967 Queen Elizabeth II knighted Francis Chichester on the river steps of the College, honouring his achievement in circumnavigating the world as a solo yachtsman, using the old route of the clippers, becoming the first to do so. His was also the fastest such circumnavigation, taking nine months and one day. The Royal School of Naval Architecture, which had been part of the College since 1873,