 Becoming First Sea Lord in November 1938, his major contribution in that role was to abandon the official British policy of sending a major fleet to Singapore to deter Japanese aggression (the Singapore strategy), realising the immediate threat was closer to home (from Germany and Italy) and that such a policy was no longer viable.He died from a brain tumour in July 1939 just before the outbreak of the Second World War.Born the fourth son of Sir Jonathan Backhouse, 1st Baronet and Florence Backhouse (née Salusbury-Trelawny), Backhouse joined the Royal Navy as a cadet in the training ship HMS "Britannia" in 1892 and went to sea as a midshipman in the battleship HMS "Repulse" in the Channel Squadron in 1894.