Samuel Uppleby

c1733-80. He was the younger son of Samuel Uppleby and his second wife, Lucy Parry. The family hailed from north Lincolnshire.

Uppleby was commissioned lieutenant on 9 November 1756, and he was the second lieutenant of the Lichfield 50, Captain Matthew Barton, when having been attached to Commodore Hon. Augustus Keppel’s squadron bound for the reduction of the French settlement of Gorée on the west coast of Africa she was wrecked near Safi on the Barbary Coast on 29 November 1758 with the loss of some one hundred and thirty lives, The survivors were ordered to attend the Sultan of Morocco, and although the officers were treated civilly the crew were employed as virtual slaves for the next four months until ransomed for a substantial sum and returned to Gibraltar. Amongst later service Uppleby was aboard the Valiant 74, Captain Adam Duncan during 1763-4.

Having gone out to the East Indies, Uppleby was promoted commander on 2 June 1772 by Rear-Admiral Sir Robert Harland and he joined the Hawke 10, which vessel was paid off at Sheerness on 8 April 1775, having arrived home with the crew in good health on 28 March. In the meantime his commission had been confirmed by the Admiralty on 1 June 1773.

The Battle of St. Lucia

He was posted captain on 8 April 1776 and flew the broad pennant of Commodore William Hotham aboard the Preston 50, going out to North America in May. After commanding a division of boats in the landings on Long Island during the New York campaign of July – October he was present at the occupation of Rhode Island on 8 December. When the bulk of the fleet undertook the Philadelphia campaign in the autumn of 1777 the Preston remained with Hotham in the Hudson River. Here she supported Lieutenant-General Sir Henry Clinton in an incursion into the Jerseys, with Uppleby leading the disembarkation. He was still holding his position of flag-captain to Hotham during Vice-Admiral Lord Howe’s fleet in the defence of New York in July 1778 and in the manouevres off Rhode Island during August where the Preston famously attacked the storm-damaged French Marseillais 74 before being obliged to disengage on the approach of other French men-of-war.

At the end of 1778 the Preston sailed under Hotham’s orders with a squadron conveying five thousand troops to the West Indies, and she fought at the Battle of St. Lucia on 15 December. The Preston remained in the Leeward Islands during 1779, and was present on 18 December when the fleet successfully attacked a French convoy

In January 1780 Uppleby commissioned the Blanche 36, which had been captured from the French in the action of 18 December, but she was lost at sea with all hands off Antigua during the Great Hurricanes of October 1780.