Bring up lover without hesitation, a large naval officer (4,7)
I believe the answer is:
rear admiral
'naval officer' is the definition.
(I know that rear-admiral is a type of rear admiral)
'bring up lover without hesitation a large' is the wordplay.
I cannot quite see how this works, but
'a' is found in the answer.
'hesitation' could be 'er' (sound made while hesitating - um, er) and 'er' is found in the remaining letters.
'large' could be 'l' (eg in clothes sizes) and 'l' is present in the answer.
This may be the basis of the clue (or it may be nonsense).
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for rear admiral that I've seen before include "navy bigwig" , "Naval officer" , "Top brass" , "Naval rank above commodore" .)