In naval terminology, a destroyer is a fast, long-endurance warship intended to escort larger vessels in a fleet, convoy or battle group and defend them against powerful short range attackers. They were developed in the late 19th century by Fernando Villaamil for the Spanish Navy as a defense against torpedo boats, by the time of the Russo-Japanese War in 1904, these "torpedo boat destroyers" were "large and powerfully armed torpedo boats designed to destroy other torpedo boats". Although the term "destroyer" had been used interchangeably with "TBD" and "torpedo boat destroyer" by navies since 1892, the term "torpedo boat destroyer" had been shortened to "destroyer" by nearly all navies by the First World War. Before World War II, destroyers were light vessels with little endurance for unattended ocean operations. After the war, the advent of the guided missile allowed destroyers to take on the surface combatant roles filled by battleships and cruisers; this resulted in larger and more powerful guided missile destroyers more capable of independent operation.

At the start of the 21st century, destroyers are the global standard for surface combatant ships, with only two nations operating the heavier class cruisers, with no battleships or true battlecruisers remaining. Modern guided missile destroyers are equivalent in tonnage but vastly superior in firepower to cruisers of the World War II era, are capable of carrying nuclear-tipped cruise missiles. At 510 feet long, a displacement of 9,200 tons, with armament of more than 90 missiles, guided missile destroyers such as the Arleigh Burke-class are larger and more armed than most previous ships classified as guided missile cruisers; some European navies, such as the French, Spanish and German, use the term "frigate" for their destroyers, which leads to some confusion. After the Second World War, destroyers grew in size; the Allen M. Sumner-class destroyer had a displacement of 2200 tons, while the Arleigh Burke class has a displacement of up to 9600 tons, thus growing in size 340%; the emergence and development of the destroyer was related to the invention of the self-propelled torpedo in the 1860s.

A navy now had the potential to destroy a superior enemy battle fleet using steam launches to fire torpedoes. Cheap, fast boats armed with torpedoes called torpedo boats were built and became a threat to large capital ships near enemy coasts; the first seagoing vessel designed to launch the self-propelled Whitehead torpedo was the 33-ton HMS Lightning in 1876. She was armed with two drop collars to launch these weapons, these were replaced in 1879 by a single torpedo tube in the bow. By the 1880s, the type had evolved into small ships of 50–100 tons, fast enough to evade enemy picket boats. At first, the threat of a torpedo boat attack to a battle fleet was considered to exist only when at anchor. In response to this new threat, more gunned picket boats called "catchers" were built which were used to escort the battle fleet at sea, they needed significant seaworthiness and endurance to operate with the battle fleet, as they became larger, they became designated "torpedo boat destroyers", by the First World War were known as "destroyers" in English.

The anti-torpedo boat origin of this type of ship is retained in its name in other languages, including French, Portuguese, Greek, Dutch and, up until the Second World War, Polish. Once destroyers became more than just catchers guarding an anchorage, it was realized that they were ideal to take over the role of torpedo boats themselves, so they were fitted with torpedo tubes as well as guns. At that time, into World War I, the only function of destroyers was to protect their own battle fleet from enemy torpedo attacks and to make such attacks on the battleships of the enemy; the task of escorting merchant convoys was still in the future. An important development came with the construction of HMS Swift in 1884 redesignated TB 81; this was a large torpedo boat with three torpedo tubes. At 23.75 knots, while still not fast enough to engage enemy torpedo boats reliably, the ship at least had the armament to deal with them. Another forerunner of the torpedo boat destroyer was the Japanese torpedo boat Kotaka, built in 1885.

Designed to Japanese specifications and ordered from the Isle of Dogs, London Yarrow shipyard in 1885, she was transported in parts to Japan, where she was assembled and launched in 1887. The 165-foot long vessel was armed with four 1-pounder quick-firing guns and six torpedo tubes, reached 19 knots, at 203 tons, was the largest torpedo boat built to date. In her trials in 1889, Kotaka demonstrated that she could exceed the role of coastal defense, was capable of accompanying larger warships on the high seas; the Yarrow shipyards, builder of the parts for Kotaka, "considered Japan to have invented the destroyer". The German aviso Greif, launched in 1886, was designed as a "torpedojäger", intended to screen the fleet against attacks by torpedo boats; the ship was larger than torpedo boats of the period, displacing some 2,266 t, with an armament of 10.5 cm guns and 3.7 cm Hotchkiss revolver cannon. The first vessel designed for the explicit purpose of

George Gibb Nicholson referred to as G. G. Nicholson, was an English-born Australian philologist and professor of French, he was the inaugural McCaughey Professor of French at University of Sydney. George Nicholson was born on 20 September 1875 in England, his parents were Donald Nicholson, a cashier, Euphemia Scott, née Gibb, who had at one time run a private school in Aberdeen, Scotland. The family emigrated to Australia, arriving in Melbourne in February 1884 and settling in Launceston, Tasmania in April of that year, his father took up a position as a bank manager working for the National Bank of Tasmania and his mother was appointed as principal of the Launceston Training College, which the young Nicholson attended as a student. Having matriculated from secondary school and won a Lithgow Scholarship in modern languages in 1896, George Nicholson studied at the University of Sydney from which he graduated in 1899, achieving first-class honours in English and German and receiving the University Medal, Professor Anderson's prize and Professor McCallum's prize for English.

Nicholson next attended Oxford. His studies there included law and he graduated in 1902 with a B. C. L. Degree. During his holidays he practised his spoken French, he attended lectures at the Sorbonne. In 1903 Nicholson returned to Australia and was appointed assistant lecturer in French and German at the University of Sydney in the department headed by Professor Mungo William MacCallum, he taught philosophy for two years at the University's St Andrew's College. In 1913 he was promoted to assistant professor. During the First World War he worked as assistant censor and district censor. In 1920 he graduated as a Master of Arts. In 1921 Nicholson was appointed as the foundation McCaughey Professor of French, a position, created in 1920 following a bequest of £458,000 from the pastoralist Sir Samuel McCaughey to the University of Sydney. During the coming years, beginning with the publication of his Recherches Philologiques Romanes and following up with Un nouveau principe d'étymologie romane and papers in foreign academic journals, he developed an "international reputation as a philologist".

His views on philology, inspired some controversy and he was accused, for example, of not putting enough emphasis on linguistic geography. However commentators have argued that his challenges to "traditional etymologies" were justified. Nicholson was an "exacting" teacher, known for enforcing academic rigour, a habit that some have interpreted as shading into "linguistic pedantry". One student recalled his marks for translation ranging as low as theta minus and that "a misplaced comma was a sin". In his early years of teaching at Sydney University, Nicholson was an advocate of the "direct method" of language learning, which aimed to replace the translation-grammar method with a greater emphasis on using the foreign language as the medium for instruction. Once he became a professor, he continued to emphasise accurate pronunciation and regular contact with the living language via native speakers of French. However, he returned the older, more traditional view of "language learning as a mental discipline".

He was generous and helpful to students who sought his advice and "always followed up the post-university careers of his successful students". Nicholson was vocal in publicly advocating for higher educational standards at all levels and in calling for more resources and staff in the modern languages section of the teachers colleges, he lobbied for funds to promote the teaching of French. This included a successful call in 1922 for French government scholarships which would enable Sydney University "students to travel to Paris... to continue their studies". During World War II he worked as chief censor. In 1945, after a quarter of a century as McCaughey Professor, he retired from the position and was appointed Professor Emeritus. Nicholson's professorial appointment was the first to a modern language chair in any Australian university, modern language courses having been, as at Sydney, under the aegis of the English or Classics departments. A. C. Chisholm, Professor of French at the University of Melbourne, argued that he "put French on the academic map in Australia" and placed it "on the same scholarly level as Classics".

During Nicholson's long tenure coupled with his influence on his cohorts of graduates and his active membership of the Modern Languages Association and German became more taught both at the secondary and tertiary levels and chairs of French were for the first time established in major Australian universities including the University of Melbourne and University of Adelaide. Although a proponent of the translation-grammar method of teaching, he promoted the importance of modern languages as living languages in which the spoken word and oral proficiency must be mastered. In 1905 Nicholson married Geneva-born Marguerite Marie Danuser, they had one daughter, Marguerite Marie Nicholson, a son, Donald Andre Nicholson. From 1905 and for the rest of his life he resided with his family in the Sydney suburb of Hunters Hill, he died on 22 December 1948. C. B. E. Chevalier de la Légion d'Honneur A Practical Introduction to French Phonetics for the Use of English-Speaking Students and Teachers Passages for Translation into French and German Recherches Philologiques Romanes Etudes étymol

George Hugh Boscawen, 9th Viscount Falmouth, DL is a British peer and landowner. His subsidiary titles include Baron Boscawen-Rose. A former officer in the Coldstream Guards, he was Lord Lieutenant of Cornwall from 1977 to 1994, he has a claim to the Barony of Burghersh, abeyant since 1449. Boscawen was the second son of Evelyn Hugh John Boscawen, 8th Viscount Falmouth, by his marriage to Mary Margaret Desiree, daughter of Hon. Frederick George Lindley Meynell, High Sheriff of Staffordshire in 1910, son of the politician Charles Wood, 1st Viscount Halifax. Mary's mother, Lady Mary Susan Felice, was daughter of the art collector and historian Alexander Lindsay, 25th Earl of Crawford. Like his younger brother Robert, he was educated at Eton and Trinity College and from 1939 to 1946 served in the Coldstream Guards, rising to the rank of Captain. During the Second World War he saw active service in Italy. On 21 May 1940 Boscawen's elder brother, Hon Evelyn Frederick Vere Boscawen a Coldstream Guards officer, was killed in action, leaving him as heir to the family titles and estates.

In 1962, he succeeded as Viscount Falmouth on the death of his father. In 1968 he was appointed a Deputy Lieutenant for Cornwall in 1977 became the county's Lord Lieutenant, retiring only in 1994 on reaching the age of seventy-five. In 1982, as chairman of the governing body of Truro Cathedral School, Falmouth took the decision to close the school, because of "deteriorating finances". In a letter to parents he stated that this decision had been taken "with great reluctance, after exploring all possible alternatives". Boscawen married Elizabeth Price Browne, a Deputy Lieutenant for Cornwall and an Officer of the Order of the British Empire, they have four sons: Hon. Evelyn Arthur Hugh Boscawen he married Lucia Vivian-Neal on 23 July 1977 and they were divorced in 1995, they have two grandsons. He remarried Katherine Helen Maley on 7 October 1995, they have three children. Hon. Nicholas John Boscawen he married Virginia Mary Rose Beare, daughter of Robin Beare, in 1985, they have two daughters. Hon. Charles Richard Boscawen he married Frances Diana Rous, daughter of Major Hon. George Nathaniel Rous, in 1985.

They have three children. Hon. Vere George Boscawen he married Catharine Halliday on 11 May 1991, they have three children. His heir is the Hon Evelyn George Boscawen. All three generations, grandfather and son, are Etonians and live on and manage the Tregothnan estate. George Boscawen, 9th Viscount Falmouth