Mark Milbanke

1724-1805. Born at Croft-on-Tees, Yorkshire, and baptised on 12 April 1724, he was the third of six sons of Sir Ralph Milbanke, the 4th baronet of Halnaby in Yorkshire, and of his second wife, Anne Delavall. His brother, also Sir Ralph Milbanke, served as an M.P from 1754-68.

In February 1737, Milbanke entered the Royal Naval Academy at Portsmouth, where he remained for the next three years. Joining the Tilbury 60, Captain Robert Long, on 15 October 1740 after the commencement of the War of Jenkins’ Ear, he served in the West Indies, transferring on 21 May 1741 to the Romney 50, Captain Thomas Grenville, and on 12 September 1742 to the yacht Old Portsmouth. Three months later he joined the Princess Mary 60, Captain Thomas Smith. On 20 April 1744 he was commissioned lieutenant, and a month later he was appointed to the Anglesea 40, Captain Jacob Elton, before returning to Captain Smith aboard the Royal Sovereign 100 in December.

On 13 September 1746 he was promoted to command the bomb Serpent 8, being employed in Scottish waters and operating out of Leith. This vessel captured a small Ostend privateer off Cromer in late April 1747 whilst engaged in convoy duty between London and Edinburgh, and at the beginning of June she escorted five troop transports from the Scottish capital to Holland. During November, a pressed man and a member of the crew were killed outright, and another pressed man fatally wounded when they jumped into a boat off Shields, however, two survivors of the desertion made good their escape.

On 21 May 1748 Milbanke was posted to the frigate Inverness 22, which was at Portsmouth in October prior to being paid off and laid up at that port in November following the end of the War of the Austrian Succession.

After spending the ensuing seven years of the peace on half pay, he was appointed to the Romney 50 on 3 April 1755. To assist with her manning, he set up a recruiting post at Sunderland a fortnight later, reportedly accepting about a hundred volunteers from the town as well as a number of pressed men. Commissioning the Romney at Portsmouth, he left the harbour for Spithead on 26 May and sailed on 23 June for Plymouth to deliver volunteers to the ships at the Devonshire port before returning to Hampshire with pressed men. By now Anglo-French relations had deteriorated to such an extent that, although the countries were not officially at war, the enemy shipping was seen as fair game. Operating out of the Downs, the Romney was sent on a cruise off the French coast in September where she took several prizes which were carried into Plymouth, and continuing to collect prizes, in December she entered Portsmouth after suffering in heavy winter gales.

The Romney continued to cruise out of the Downs in the early part of 1756, but she was forced into Spithead at the end of February after losing her main and mizzen masts in a gale. She remained at Portsmouth for some time with the Channel Fleet, during which period her crew would have witnessed the execution of Admiral Hon. John Byng. At the end of March, she put to sea under the orders of Vice-Admiral Hon. Edward Boscawen, and after a brief return, she sailed once more with that officer’s force at the end of April. On 30 June she arrived at Portsmouth from a cruise and was laid up, having been deemed unfit for service.

HMS Ocean, Milbanke’s flagship in 1782.

Shortly afterwards, Milbanke commissioned the Guernsey 50 at Chatham, taking her out of the dock on 29 July 1756. In October she arrived at Portsmouth with the trade from the Downs, and six days later she sailed for the Mediterranean, giving passage to Captain Charles Colby, the naval commissioner for Gibraltar, and delivering a convoy to Cadiz. She returned to Portsmouth on 1 May 1757 to be docked, and in June she embarked the governor of Gibraltar, the Earl of Home, prior to sailing for the Mediterranean at the end of the month.

The Guernsey cruised with the Mediterranean Fleet in the summer of 1758 and in early 1759 Milbanke undertook an independent mission to Morocco with the role of ambassador, being well received by the Sultan. During his absence from his ship, she fought at the Battle of Lagos on 20 August under the command of the first lieutenant, Michael Kearney. Milbanke continued in his role as ambassador in 1760 whilst flying a broad pennant on the Barbary Coast, taking Captain Matthew Barton of the Litchfield 50 aboard on parole after that officer had been imprisoned and many of his crew kept in semi-slavery following the shipwreck of their vessel on the Moroccan coast in November 1758. Building on his rapport with the Sultan, in September 1760 Milbanke negotiated the release of Christian slaves from Sallee, the modern-day Salé, and he transported them to Gibraltar in August. He subsequently returned to England with the Guernsey and a convoy in February 1761.

After a long period on the beach, he became the flag-captain to Vice-Admiral Sir James Douglas aboard the Barfleur 90 at Portsmouth in November 1775, and he retained this vessel until she was taken into harbour in February 1777 for a thorough repair. In April he commissioned the Princess Royal 90 for the flag of the new commander-in-chief at Portsmouth, Admiral Sir Thomas Pye, and he took her out of harbour in mid-July for Spithead where she remained for some time.

In May 1778 the Princess Royal was requisitioned for the flag of Vice-Admiral Hon. John Byron, and Milbanke transferred to the Namur 90, which was under repair at Chatham, and which he recommissioned in early June. Although the ship was ready for service by early August, she was well short of her complement, had no marines aboard, and was obliged to rely on a hundred and fifty Greenwich pensioners to work her. Departing Chatham on 7 August, she dropped down to Blackstakes to take on board her ordnance, but she was still listed as fitting out on the Medway during September, and it was not until the end of October that she reached the Downs, some two months after it had been announced that she was ready for sea. Upon sailing from the Downs for Portsmouth in November with ships for the West India convoy, she had to drive off a small French privateer that had got in amongst her charges. Thereafter she was employed with the Grand Fleet at Spithead, where in early 1779 Milbanke sat on the court martial of Admiral Hon. Augustus Keppel to consider the commander-in-chief’s conduct of the Battle of Ushant on 27 July 1778.

Milbanke was created a rear-admiral on 19 March 1779, and was thereafter based at Plymouth as the second-in-command to Vice-Admiral Lord Molyneux Shuldham. On 26 September 1780 he was promoted vice-admiral.

Upon the fall of the government in 1782, Milbanke briefly commanded at Portsmouth in the absence of two senior admirals, and in early August he hoisted his flag there aboard the Bristol 50, Captain James Burney. Several days later he transferred to the Ocean 90, Captain Richard Boger, but when a squadron was hastily assembled to meet a Dutch threat in the North Sea, he moved to the Fortitude 74, Captain George Keppel. On 1 September he sailed from the Downs with fifteen sail of the line in search of the Dutch, but arriving off the Texel on the evening of the 3rd he found them safely harboured, so with the valuable Baltic convoy no longer at risk, his force returned to Spithead four days later.

Re-hoisting his flag aboard the Ocean, Milbanke sat on the court-martial into the loss on 29 August of the Royal George, and he subsequently served with the Channel Fleet when it relieved Gibraltar on 18 October. During the ensuing action off Cape Spartel, his flagship reportedly engaged the mighty Santissima Trinidad 116 and traded blow for blow with her. On the voyage back to England his squadron of six sail of the line parted from the main fleet for Ireland, and on 13 November he sailed from Cove to Plymouth before proceeding up to London whilst the Ocean entered dock at Portsmouth.

The Royal William, one of Milbanke’s last flagships.

Following the end of the American Revolutionary War, Milbanke served as the commander-in-chief at Plymouth from May 1783 with his flag aboard the Panther 50, Captain Robert Simonton, and later the Blenheim 90, Captain Richard Boger, until that vessel was paid off in September 1784. During this period, he was active in attempting to curb an increase in smuggling in the counties of Cornwall, Dorset, and Devon. From 1785-6 his flag was aboard the Sampson 64, Captain Charles Hope, and he left his post at Plymouth in November of the latter year. At the time of the Dutch Armament in the autumn of 1787 it was mooted that he would be appointed the third-in-command of the Channel Fleet, but the dispute soon passed.

In March 1789 Milbanke was appointed the lieutenant-governor and commander-in-chief at Newfoundland for the customary three years with his flag aboard the Salisbury 50, Captain William Domett, although it was not until mid-July that the squadron sailed from Portsmouth, prior to returning to that port in the second week of November. He attended a levee at Carlton House with the Prince of Wales in April 1790, and on 13 August re-hoisted his flag at Portsmouth aboard the Salisbury after taking leave of the King, although it was nearer the end of the month before the weather allowed him to sail. With Edward Pellew serving as his flag captain, he returned to Portsmouth on 21 November. In 1791 he sailed for Newfoundland in July before returning in November, following which he went up to London to be presented to the King once more. During his time in Newfoundland he did much to enforce the strict rules regarding the prevention of unauthorised immigration to the colony, burning down several buildings in the course of this duty.

On 1 February 1793 Milbanke was promoted admiral, and after six years of unemployment through the opening stages of the French Revolutionary War he was appointed commander-in-chief at Portsmouth on 14 September 1799 when his predecessor, Admiral Sir Peter Parker, became admiral of the fleet on the death of Admiral Earl Howe. Remaining in the position for the next four years during times of war and peace, he flew his flag predominately aboard the Royal William 90, Captain Francis Pickmore, until she went into harbour in September 1801, raising it thereafter on a number of different vessels as appropriate. He was finally relieved on 24 March 1803 and did not see any further employment, although with the renewal of hostilities with France approaching in May 1803, he attended the Admiralty at the same time as Vice-Admiral Lord Nelson who was about to take command of the Mediterranean Fleet.

Admiral Milbanke died on 10 June 1805 from injuries incurred when falling over the banisters into the hallway at his home in Upper Wimpole Street, London.

He married Mary Webber on 16 July 1768 at Chester-le-Street, Durham, and had one son, Ralph, who retired as a captain in 1804, despite newspaper reports in January 1781 stating that he had been lost with the sloop Barbadoes in the Great Hurricanes during October 1780. He also had two daughters, the younger of whom married William Huskisson, the secretary of war in William Pitt’s government and the brother of Captain Thomas Huskisson. His grand niece, Anne Isabella Milbanke, married the poet Lord Byron in 1815. In 1780’s he was letting out his property of Saylor’s Hall, Easington, Sunderland.

Active and diligent, Milbanke was well regarded, popular with the hands, and worthy of the opportunities that came his way. One newspaper described him as ‘one of the greatest humorists in the Navy’ and recorded how officers enjoyed serving under him.