British Admirals of the Fleet

by T A Heathcote

  Salmon was promoted to captain on 12December 1863. In January 1866 he married Emily Augusta Saunders, the daughter of a country gentleman, and later had with her a family of a son and a daughter. Between March 1869 and May 1873 Salmon commanded the armoured ship Defence in the Mediterranean, after which he served from April 1874 to May 1877 as captain of the armoured ship Valiant, stationed at Foynes on the River Shannon, Ireland. On 28 November 1877 he was given command of the battleship Swiftsure in the Mediterranean, where he served until returning home in 1878. He was promoted to rear-admiral on 2 August 1879. Between April 1882 and April 1885 Salmon was C-in-C, Cape of Good Hope and the West Coast of Africa, with his flag in the corvette Boadicea. He was promoted to vice-admiral on 1 July 1885 and awarded the KCB in June 1887. Sir Nowell Salmon was C-in-C on the China station from December 1887 to the end of 1890, with his flag in the armoured cruiser Impérieuse. He was promoted to admiral on 10 September 1891 and C-in-C, Portsmouth, from June 1894 until August 1897, with his tenure extended by two months beyond the usual three years, so that he could command the Diamond Jubilee Review at Spithead, with a line of warships twenty-five miles long. He became an admiral of the fleet on 18 January 1899 and retired in February 1905. Sir Nowell Salmon died of bronchitis at his home in Clarence Parade, Southsea, Hampshire, on 14 February 1912 and was buried in St Peter’s churchyard, Curdridge, near Southampton.

  ST VINCENT

  EARL OF, see JERVIS, Sir JOHN

  SARTORIUS

  Sir GEORGE ROSE, GCB (1790–1885) [32]

  George Sartorius, the son of an engineer officer in the East India Company’s service and his wife Arabella, was born in 1790 and entered the Royal Navy in June 1801, during the French Revolutionary War, as a volunteer in the yacht Mary. In May 1802, surviving the post-war reductions following the Treaty of Amiens (27 March 1802), he joined the 5th-rate Fisguard. After the renewal of war with France in May 1803 he became a midshipman in the 5th-rate Naiad, from which he moved to the 3rd-rate Tonnant in October 1804. Sartorius was in this ship at the battle of Trafalgar (21 October 1805) and afterwards formed part of the prize crew of the captured Spanish ship Bahama. In June 1806 he was appointed to the 6th-rate Daphne, in which he served in the River Plate during 1807 in operations against the Spanish colonial cities of Montevideo, Uruguay, and Buenos Aires, Argentina. In 1808, when the Spanish rose against French occupation, British operations against Spain and her colonies came to an end.

  Sartorius was promoted to lieutenant in the 5th-rate Success on 5 March 1808, and spent the next year on fishery protection duties off Greenland, before joining the fleet in the Mediterranean. He took part in the landing of a British army on the islands of Ischia and Procida, Naples, in June 1809, and was subsequently deployed in the defence of Sicily against the threat of invasion from the French-occupied mainland. During 1810 he took part in a number of boat actions and cutting-out expeditions along the Italian coast and was mentioned in despatches. After serving with the flotilla in the defence of Cadiz, where a combined Spanish, British and Portuguese garrison was under siege by the French, Sartorius was promoted to commander on 1 February 1812. His next appointments were successively to the sloops Snap in August 1812 and Avon in July 1813. He was promoted to captain on 6 June 1814, two months after Napoleon’s abdication. Between December 1814 and August 1815 he commanded the 6th-rate Slaney and was off Rochefort, in company with the 3rd-rate Bellerophon, when Napoleon surrendered himself to these ships after his final defeat at Waterloo. During 1828, Sartorius commanded the 5th-rate Pyramus in the British fleet at Lisbon.

  In 1831 Sartorius became of one of the many unemployed veterans who, with the approval of the British government, served in the civil wars in Spain and Portugal. He was given command of the fleet of the exiled Regent of Portugal, the constitutionalist Dom Pedro, with the rank of admiral, and landed his army at Oporto in July 1832. Pedro’s brother and rival, the absolutist Dom Miguel, besieged the city until July 1833, while Sartorius protected it from the sea. When funds to pay his men were not forthcoming, he was forced to use his own money to keep them from mutiny and desertion, and threatened to sail away, taking the fleet with him, unless he was reimbursed. Pedro sent two other British officers to relieve him of his command, but Sartorius, with the full approval of his crews, arrested them. In June 1833 he was succeeded by Sir Charles Napier, who insisted on full payment before destroying the Miguelist fleet off Cape St Vincent (5 July 1833).

  Sartorius was restored to the Navy List in 1836. He married Sophia, a daughter of John Lamb, Esquire, in 1839 and later had with her a family of three sons, who all joined the Army and two of whom won the Victoria Cross. In 1841 he was awarded a knighthood and was appointed to the 3rd-rate Malabar, which he commanded in the Mediterranean until 1844. Sir George Sartorius received the thanks of the United States government for his efforts to save the frigate Missouri, lost by fire off Gibraltar, but saw no more active service. He became a rear-admiral on 9 May 1849, vice-admiral on 31 January 1856, admiral on 11 February 1861 and was awarded the KCB in March 1865. Sartorius was promoted to admiral of the fleet on 3 July 1869. He died at his house, East Grove, Lymington, Hampshire, on 13 April 1885.

  SEYMOUR

  Sir EDWARD HOBART, GCB, OM, GCVO (1840–1929) [57]

  Edward Seymour, second son of the rector of Kinwarton, was born at Kinwarton, Warwickshire, on 30 April 1840. His grandfather was Rear-Admiral Sir Michael Seymour, a veteran of the Napoleonic wars, and his uncle became Admiral Sir Michael Seymour. After attending Radley School, Oxfordshire, and Eastman’s Naval Academy, Southsea, he joined the Navy late in 1852 on appointment to the screw corvette Encounter. In January 1854 he became a midshipman in the paddle frigate Terrible, in which he served in the Black Sea from April 1854 to 1856 during the Crimean War, and during 1857 sailed in the sloop Cruizer to join his uncle’s flagship Caledonia on the China station. He served in several engagements during the Second China War, including an attack on a fleet of war-junks at Fat-shan Creek in the estuary below Canton (Guangzhou) (1 June 1857), where his boat was sunk by gunfire; the capture of Canton (29 December 1857), where he served in the artillery of the naval brigade alongside Midshipman Arthur Wilson [59]; and the capture of the Taku Forts, at the mouth of the Peiho River, northern China (20 May 1858). He was subsequently sent home in the frigate Pique, suffering from the effects of heat stress.

  After returning to Portsmouth Seymour was appointed to the steam frigate Mersey, from which he went to study at the cadet training ship Illustrious and the gunnery school Excellent. Having qualified for promotion to lieutenant in all respects except age, he became a mate in June 1859 and rejoined Mersey in the Channel. With the renewal of the Second China War in the same month, he was appointed to the frigate Impérieuse. On passage to the China station he earned the medal of the Royal Humane Society for diving into the shark-infested waters of Rhio (Riau) Bay, near Singapore, in an unsuccessful bid to rescue a marine who had fallen overboard. After reaching Hong Kong Seymour was appointed lieutenant by the local C-in-C, Sir James Hope [39], in his flagship, the frigate Chesapeake, and took part in the capture of the Taku Forts (21 August 1860). He subsequently served in the river paddle steamer Waterman at Canton, first as second-in-command and then as commanding officer, with his promotion to lieutenant confirmed on 11 February 1861. He was then appointed to the paddle sloop Sphinx as first lieutenant, in which he visited the Philippines and Guam, where, at an impressionable age, he fell in love with several Spanish ladies in the local colonial society. After four and a half months in Sphinx Seymour returned to Impérieuse, which had become Hope’s flagship, and from which he landed with various shore parties during 1862 to assist the Imperial Chinese authorities during the Taiping rebellion.

  From 1863 to 1866 Seymour was flag lieutenant to his uncle as C-in-C, Portsmouth, with a brief attachment in 1865 to the royal yacht Victoria and Albert. He became commander on 5 March 1866 in one of the promotions customarily allotted to a C-in-C on hauling down his flag. On
half-pay, he spent some time in the Peterhead whaling ship Mazinthien, to gain experience of navigating in icy waters, in the hope of joining an Arctic expedition. In 1868 he was appointed to the Coast Guard in Ireland followed in June 1869 by command of the gunboat Growler on the West Coast of Africa. In 1870, in operations against African pirates on the Congo coast, he was shot in the leg, but received no treatment as his ship’s surgeon had taken to drink and was unfit for duty. After being invalided home, Seymour returned to half-pay and during 1871, visited France and Switzerland and became fluent in French. From January 1872 until his promotion to captain on 13 March 1873 he commanded successively the paddle despatch vessels Vigilant and Lively in the Channel. He then spent a year at the Royal Naval College, Greenwich, and resumed his travels in France and Italy. Between 1876 and 1879 he commanded the troopship Orontes. After again travelling abroad, he returned to sea in April 1880 in command of the cruiser Iris in the Mediterranean Fleet.

  From November 1882 to February 1885 Seymour commanded the battleship Inflexible, remaining in the Mediterranean. Late in 1885, when there was a threat of war between the United Kingdom and Russia over the disputed control of Penjdeh on the borders of Afghanistan and Turkmenistan, he was given a brief command of the armed merchant cruiser Oregon, a converted liner intended to counter Russian commerce raiders. He served as flag captain to the C-in-C, Portsmouth, from May 1886 to December 1887 and then became assistant to the Admiral Superintendent of Naval Reserves and Coast Guards. Seymour was promoted to rear-admiral on 14 July 1889. On half-pay, he again travelled abroad and visited France, Russia, the West Indies and the United States. He remained a keen linguist and felt strongly that all naval officers should be able to converse in at least one foreign language. In July 1892 he commanded a squadron in the annual fleet exercises, with his flag in the battleship Swiftsure and from then until April 1894 was second-in-command of the Channel Squadron, with his flag successively in the battleships Anson and Empress of India. He was then appointed Admiral Superintendent of Naval Reserves, with promotion to vice-admiral on 9 November 1895. Seymour commanded the Reserve Fleet in its annual exercises, with his flag in the battleship Alexandra, and achieved a notable success over the Channel Fleet in the manoeuvres of 1896. He was awarded the KCB in 1897.

  Sir Edward Seymour was appointed C-in-C on the China station in December 1897, with his flag in the battleship Centurion. In May 1898 he took possession of Wei-hai-wei on the coast of northern China, acquired by the British in response to the occupation of Kiao-Chow (Jiaozhou) by the Germans and of Port Arthur (Lushun) by the Russians. Chinese resentment at the growth of Western ideas and influence led to the growth of an anti-foreign movement, the Fists of Righteous Harmony, or Boxers. At the end of May 1900, when Boxer rebels murdered the German minister and laid siege to the diplomatic quarter of Peking (Beijing), Seymour sailed for the Taku Forts at the mouth of the Peiho River, where he was joined by warships from several other nations. At the head of a naval brigade composed of some two thousand seamen and marines from the ships of eight different nations, he proceeded overland to the relief of the legations, but was met by strong opposition at Lang Fang (11 June 1900) and had to fall back to Tientsin (Tienjin). He captured the arsenal of Hsiku and withstood a three-day siege by Boxers and Imperial Chinese troops until, having suffered nearly three hundred casualties, he was relieved by a Russian column. Seymour was promoted to admiral on 24 May 1901 and returned home after a six-month extension in command. He was C-in-C, Plymouth, from March 1903 to February 1905 and, in recognition of his services in China, was extended in appointment for a month after his promotion to admiral of the fleet on 20 February 1905, to allow him to fly his flag in that rank. He returned briefly to sea in 1909, with his flag in the new battle-cruiser Inflexible, in command of a squadron sent to attend celebrations at Boston, Massachusetts. He retired in 1910 and died, unmarried, at his home in Maidenhead, Berkshire, on 2 March 1929.

  SEYMOUR

  Sir GEORGE FRANCIS, GCB, GCH (1787–1870) [29]

  George Seymour was born on 17 September 1787, the eldest son of Vice-Admiral Lord Hugh Seymour (fifth son of the first Marquess of Hertford). Lord Hugh was an intimate of the Prince of Wales, but had been rescued from his irregular lifestyle by his marriage to Anne, third daughter of the second Earl Waldegrave. Seymour’s other family connections included the Duke of Grafton, five marquesses, three earls, two viscounts and a baron. He joined the Navy in October 1797 as a first class volunteer in the yacht Princess Augusta in the Thames. In March 1798 he joined his father’s flagship, the 3rd-rate Sanspareil in the Channel and subsequently went with him to the 2nd-rate Prince of Wales, on his appointment as C-in-C, Leeward Islands and Jamaica. He was at the Dutch surrender of Surinam in August 1799 and was appointed midshipman in the 5th-rate Acasta at the beginning of 1800. After Lord Hugh Seymour’s death from yellow fever in September 1801 George Seymour remained in Acasta until the end of the French Revolutionary War in March 1802. During the next two years he served on the Home, Newfoundland and Mediterranean stations, in the 4th-rates Endymion and Isis.

  After the renewal of war with France in May 1803 Seymour was in Endymion at the capture of the corvettes Colombe and Bacchante, the store-ship Adour and the privateer Général Moreau. He then moved to the 1st-rate Victory, flagship of Viscount Nelson, from which he became acting lieutenant in the 4th-rate Madras in February 1804 and the 3rd-rate Donegal in March 1804. He was confirmed as lieutenant in Donegal on 12 October 1804 and was at the capture of two Spanish frigates, Matilda and Amfitrate, before going with the rest of Nelson’s fleet in the pursuit of the French Admiral Villeneuve to the West Indies and back during the summer of 1805. Immediately after the battle of Trafalgar (21 October 1805) he was at the capture of the Spanish 100-gun ship El Rayo. In January 1806 Seymour joined the 3rd-rate Northumberland, flagship in the West Indies. He served at the battle of Santo Domingo (6 February 1806), off Spanish-held eastern Hispaniola, in the last major fleet action of the Napoleonic wars, where he was wounded in the jaw with the loss of several teeth and was mentioned in despatches. He was promoted to commander on 22 January 1806 and appointed to command the sloop Kingfisher, in which he sailed to join Rear-Admiral Edward Thornbrough’s squadron blockading Rochefort. Thornbrough came to consider Seymour imprudent and ordered him not to go closer inshore than the Ile d’Aix. On 14 May 1806, when the dashing Lord Cochrane’s frigate, the 5th-rate Pallas, was disabled by coast artillery while attempting to capture the French frigate Minerve, Seymour disregarded these orders and towed Pallas to safety.

  Seymour was promoted captain on 29 July 1806 on appointment to the 6th-rate Aurora in the Mediterranean. In February 1808 he was given command of Pallas in which he served in the Channel under Lord Gambier [14] and took part in Lord Cochrane’s attack on a French squadron in the Basque Roads on 11–12 April 1809. Cochrane later accused Gambier of failing to support him and Seymour gave evidence on Cochrane’s side at the court-martial convened to clear Gambier’s name. Seymour’s opinion does not seem to have been held against him, and he was appointed to the 5th-rate Manilla at Lisbon in September 1809. In March 1811 he married his cousin Georgina, eldest daughter of Vice-Admiral Sir George Berkeley. They later had a family of three daughters and three sons, of whom the eldest eventually succeeded to the peerage as fifth Marquess of Hertford and the second became a captain in the Navy. Manilla was lost off the Texel in January 1812, during Seymour’s absence, and he was given another ship, the 5th-rate Fortunée, in June 1812. During the American War of 1812 he was appointed captain of the 5th-rate Leonidas in January 1813 and served in the West Indies, where he captured the United States privateer Paul Jones (23 May 1813).

  Seymour became sergeant-at-arms to the House of Lords (where his uncle, the Marquess of Hertford, was Lord Chamberlain) in 1818 and remained in that office, with an absence of a few months during 1827, in command of the 5th-rate Briton, until 1841. He became a knight commander of the Guelphic Order of Hanover, with a British knightho
od, in 1831. Sir George Seymour was from September 1841 to September 1844 a lord commissioner of the Admiralty in the Board headed by the Earl of Haddington in Sir Robert Peel’s second Cabinet. He became a rear-admiral of the Blue on 23 November 1841, rear-admiral of the White on 9 November 1846 and rear-admiral of the Red on 26 July 1847. Between 1844 and 1848 he was C-in-C, Pacific station, with his flag in the 3rd-rate Collingwood. During this period there were strained relations with the French over Tahiti in 1844 and with the United States over Oregon in 1845–6, and Seymour’s ships played a valuable part in projecting British power. He was promoted to vice-admiral of the Blue on 27 March 1850. Between January 1851 and November 1853 he was C-in-C, North America and West Indies station, and from January 1856 to March 1859 C-in-C, Portsmouth, with promotion to admiral on 14 May 1857. Seymour was promoted to admiral of the fleet on 30 November 1866. He died of bronchitis on 20 January 1870 and was buried at Holy Trinity church, Arrow, near his family’s estate at Alcester, Warwickshire.