Admiral Sir Richard Vesey Hamilton was a Royal Navy officer. As a junior officer he twice volunteered to take part in missions to search for Sir John Franklin's ill-fated expedition to find the Northwest Passage. He also took part in the Battle of Fatshan Creek in June 1857 during the Second Opium War.

The Commander-in-Chief, China, was the admiral in command of what was usually known as the China Station, at once both a British Royal Navy naval formation and its admiral in command. It was created in 1865 and deactivated in 1941.