Admiral of the Fleet Sir Arthur Dalrymple Fanshawe, was a Royal Navy officer. As a captain he became commanding officer, successively, of the troopships HMS Jumna and HMS Malabar, which were tasked with ferrying troops between the United Kingdom and India. These were difficult commands with regular disputes between the military officers in charge of the troops and the naval officers in command of the ships.

Admiral of the Fleet is a five-star naval officer rank and the highest rank of the Royal Navy, formally established in 1688. The five-star NATO rank code is OF-10, equivalent to a field marshal in the British Army or a Marshal of the Royal Air Force. Apart from honorary appointments, no new admirals of the fleet have been named since 1995, and no honorary appointments have been made since 2014.