Reserve readiness and the Fourth Destroyer Flotilla

After staff appointments and professional schooling, Dalrymple-Hamilton took HMS Malcolm and responsibility for the Nore Reserve Flotilla, keeping mothballed destroyers ready for wartime mobilization while learning to coordinate staff and dockyard work. The seven-year gap since his last sea command was therefore a period of professional development rather than inactivity. The reserve appointment gave destroyer captains experience administering personnel, mobilization training, shore staffs, and dockyard relationships, skills useful in later senior posts. Dalrymple-Hamilton then led HMS Keith and the Fourth Destroyer Flotilla during the Abyssinia crisis, the approach of the Spanish Civil War, and continuing post-Ottoman tensions. The B-class ships were among the Navy's newest destroyers, and he expected rapid arrival, high-speed maneuver, and strong gunnery from the whole flotilla. Its reputation later helped the Mediterranean Tribal flotilla inherit the Fourth Flotilla designation.