Sir Edward Codrington (1770-1851)

Despite fighting at the Battle of Trafalgar and earning praise for his assistance to Catalan patriots in the Peninsular War, Codrington is best remembered for commanding an allied fleet in the last great battle in the age of sail, the controversial Battle of Navarino in 1827.

Born on 27 April 1770 at Dodington Park, Gloucestershire, he was the third and youngest son of an aristocratic landowner, Edward Codrington, and of his wife, Rebecca Sturgeon. One of his brothers, Christopher Bethell Codrington, served as the MP for Tewkesbury in the Tory interest from 1797 until 1812 (and also played first class cricket).

Sir Edward Codrington

Orphaned at an early stage, then educated by his uncle and briefly at Harrow School, Codrington entered the navy aboard the yacht Princess Augusta on 18 July 1783 at the age of 13. Two years later he moved to the sloop Brisk, Commander George Tripp, seeing service off Nova Scotia, but soon transferred to the Assistance 50, Captain Nicholas Sawyer, the pennant ship of Commodore Herbert Sawyer on that station. On Sawyer’s promotion to rear-admiral in September 1787 he transferred with him to the Leander 50, Captain Sir James Barclay. He remained on the Leander, now under Captain Joseph Peyton jnr, when she became the flagship of Rear-Admiral Joseph Peyton in the Mediterranean in 1789. Promoted to acting lieutenant in April 1790, Codrington moved to the Ambuscade 32, (acting Captain Hon. Robert Stopford), and then saw brief service aboard the Assistance, Captain Lord James Cranstoun. During the Russian Armament of 1791 he served on the Formidable 98, Captain Henry Nicholls, the flagship of Rear-Admiral Hon. John Leveson-Gower.

When the French Revolutionary War began in February 1793, Codrington joined the Queen Charlotte 100, Captain Hugh Cloberry Christian, the flagship of Admiral Lord Howe in the Channel Fleet. Apparently General Sir William Howe (with whom he was acquainted), had recommended the young man to his brother. On 28 May, at the age of 23, he was commissioned lieutenant, and after a short spell aboard the frigate Santa Margarita 36, Captain Eliab Harvey, he was appointed in June to the frigate Pegasus 28, Captain Robert Barlow. At the request of Lord Howe he returned in October to the flagship, Queen Charlotte, acting as her signal lieutenant in the days leading up to the Battle of the Glorious First of June in 1794. During the battle, he had command of the foremost lower gun deck, firing each cannon in succession into the stern of the Montagne 120. Accorded the honour of conveying the duplicate despatches from Portsmouth to London, he was promoted commander on 7 October and was appointed to the fireship Comet, in which he served with the Channel Fleet for the next six months.

On 6 April 1795 (after only six months as a commander) he was posted captain of the Babet 22, a French-built corvette. Initially she was attached to Commodore Sir John Borlase Warren’s squadron, accompanying an expedition to Quiberon Bay, and witnessing the Battle of Groix on 23 June. In August she escorted a fleet of transports from Plymouth to the Downs, at the end of September she took another transport convoy to Portsmouth, and then she was taken into the harbour for a refit. By December the command of the Babet had passed from Codrington to Captain William Lobb.

After half a year on the beach, Codrington joined the twelve-pounder frigate Druid 32 in July 1796, acting for the normal captain, Richard King. He sailed from St. Helens with Vice-Admiral Sir Hyde Parker’s grand convoy in August, escorting the Portugal-bound ships into Vigo and Oporto. On 10 September the Druid was at Lisbon, having detained a Spanish ship ‘until the event of a war’ with that country was known. (In the Portuguese capital hostilities were believed to be imminent and they were confirmed on 8 October with Spain’s declaration of war on Britain). It was not until 2 December that the Druid departed Oporto with a 40-strong convoy which soon scattered in heavy gales. By the end of December she was at Cork in Ireland when the French invasion fleet was dispersed due to the appalling weather. She was present (with the Doris 36, Captain Hon. Charles Jones, and Unicorn 32, Captain Sir Thomas Williams) on 7 January 1797 at the capture of the French transport Ville de Lorient 36, off the Shannon. The prize had 450 troops aboard; Codrington brought the vessel into Kinsale on 12 January. The Druid escorted a large convoy to Plymouth at the end of the month, followed by a trip to Portsmouth at the end of February. There Codrington left her, as the ship needed such extensive repairs that she was converted from a cruising warship to a troopship.

For the next eight years Codrington remained unemployed; in 1797, he and two of his siblings inherited a slave estate on Antigua from their uncle, Christopher Bethell. On 27 December 1802, at Old Windsor Church he married the beautiful Jane Hall, the daughter of a plantation owner from Kingston, Jamaica. The couple would have three sons and two daughters. In the spring of 1804, he rejected the offer of the command of the Argo 44 (usually a career-limiting act), but in May 1805 the prime minister, William Pitt, contacted the First Lord of the Admiralty, Lord Barham, with a request that Codrington be given a (presumably better) ship. This arrangement was a quid pro quo for the Government to secure the vote of Codrington’s MP brother in Parliament. Accordingly, a day later, on 24 May, he was appointed (with somewhat mixed feelings) to the thoroughly repaired Orion 74.

Sailing out of Portsmouth Harbour on 24 July 1805, the Orion was initially attached to the Channel Fleet, before being detached to reinforce Vice-Admiral Sir Robert Calder’s fleet following the indecisive Battle of Cape Finisterre. Next joining the force which was congregating off Cadiz under Vice-Admiral Lord Nelson, the Orion sailed in Nelson’s weather column at the Battle of Trafalgar on 21 October. Coming late into the action from her position of ninth in the line, the Orion poured shattering broadsides into the French Swiftsure 74 and the Spanish Bahama 74, both of which were soon captured by other ships. Then she supported the Africa 64 in her engagement with the gallant Intrépide 74, and she received the eventual surrender of the French vessel. Codrington later wrote to his wife that the Orion ‘took all the fighting she could get coolly and deliberately, always reserving her fire to produce decision, and never risking the firing into, but cautiously assisting her own friends’. As a result of her unavoidably delayed entry into the battle, the Orion’s casualties only amounted to one man killed and twenty-three wounded.

In the months after the Battle of Trafalgar the Orion remained with the Mediterranean Fleet at the blockade of Cadiz. In March 1806 she was detached with a small squadron to search (fruitlessly) for a squadron of French frigates, in the course of which mission she visited Madeira. She reached Gibraltar in the last week of May to embark the ailing Lieutenant-General Henry Fox and his family to take up the role of ambassador to the Court of the Two Sicilies in Palermo. At the end of November she arrived at Portsmouth after an 8 day-voyage from the fleet off Cadiz, and Codrington handed over the command to Captain Sir Archibald Dickson.

HMS Orion – which Codrington commanded at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805

Following another period ashore, Codrington was re-employed in November 1808 in command of the Blake 74, a new ship built at Deptford using foreign oak. At the beginning of January 1809 she was due to sail with other men-of-war for Cadiz, but they were ordered to return to the Downs over concerns about the danger posed by French ships at Flushing on the Dutch coast. After brief visits to Plymouth and Portsmouth she joined Rear-Admiral Sir Roger Strachan’s fleet, sailing from the Downs in early May, and flying the flag of Rear-Admiral Lord Gardner in the Walcheren Expedition from July. On 14 August, during operations off Flushing, the Blake drove aground and was twice set on fire by red-hot shot from the enemy’s batteries, before finally escaping with the loss of two men killed and nine wounded.

Intriguingly, Edward Codrington wasn’t the only member of his family who had difficulties in Dutch waters at this time. On 29 September 1809 his wife, Jane, took passage with a female companion and a number of Army wives and children from the Downs for Flushing aboard the Venerable 74, Captain Andrew King. She was going to visit her husband and see the island of Walcheren, where the British Army had been waging an unsuccessful campaign. The vessel grounded near the island in the Deurloo Channel, and even though two masts were cut away and the stores and cannon jettisoned, she began to sink. With hopes of saving the ship diminishing, the women and children were put into boats and sent away to safety on land. Happily, the Venerable did eventually make the basin at Flushing, whilst at home the newspapers wasted little time in eulogising Mrs Codrington’s impressive fortitude during these trying circumstances.

On 1 January 1810 the Blake was taken into harbour at Sheerness, allowing Codrington to give evidence at the inquiry into the Walcheren Expedition in London. Once released from dock, the Blake sailed for the Nore in mid-April and then to Portsmouth from where she departed for the Mediterranean. There she came under the orders of Rear-Admiral Francis Pickmore and was given the task of assisting the Spanish patriots to resist the French at the Siege of Cadiz. Codrington soon earned praise for escorting four old, undermanned Spanish men-of-war overflowing with refugees from Cadiz to Minorca. The voyage, beset by contrary winds, took thirty-eight days, extending through August into September.

From April 1811 he commanded a small squadron off Catalonia with great distinction. He earned praise for his efforts to save Tarragona from the French Army in the early summer and co-operated closely with the Spanish patriots prior to the evacuation of the town on 28 June. The Blake expended so much shot and powder in this campaign that she had to retire to Gibraltar in July to replenish. By October she was off Mataro, north of Barcelona, where she remained for several months. In January 1812 Codrington was invited by the leader of the Catalan Army, Joaquín Ibáñez Cuevas y de Valonga, Baron de Eroles , to join him in an attack on Tarragona. On 19 January, he narrowly escaped capture when a body of French cavalry almost intercepted him on his return to the Blake from a conference ashore. That same night his squadron bombarded Tarragona, although unfortunately the Catalans failed to follow up with an assault. Ten days later the squadron opened fire on French troops attacking Mataro, but again the Catalans failed to take advantage of the bombardment, and when the ships were blown offshore, Codrington lost contact with the Spanish. Another assault on Tarragona was planned for September, and on this occasion the Catalan Army did join the attack, although they were unable to dislodge the French from the town. Despite these frustrations, Codrington wrote of his admiration for the Spanish bravery and their enthusiasm for the fight to free their homeland.

On 30 March 1813 Codrington returned to England with the Blake, entering Portsmouth Harbour on 5 April. He spent the next year ashore; on 4 December he was appointed to the honorary rank of colonel of marines.

In May 1814 he was ordered to raise a commodore’s broad pennant aboard the new fir-built frigate Forth 40, Captain Sir William Bolton, intended to join the War of 1812 against the Americans. Prior to sailing he attended a levêe with the Prince Regent and a meeting with the secretary of state for war and the colonies, Earl Bathurst. On 4 June 1814 he was promoted rear-admiral in line with seniority, and after arriving at Bermuda in July he assumed the position of captain of the fleet to the commander-in-chief, Vice-Admiral Hon. Sir Alexander Cochrane aboard the Tonnant 80. Unfortunately, relations with his senior soon deteriorated, but he was praised for his efforts to keep supplies flowing to the British force under Rear-Admiral George Cockburn and Major-General Robert Ross that attacked Washington and Baltimore. He later accompanied the expedition to New Orleans with his flag aboard the Havannah 36, Captain Gawen Hamilton, returning to England in April 1815 aboard that vessel with despatches announcing the capture of Fort Bowyer, the final futile episode in this disastrous campaign.

Along with many other officers, Codrington had been created a KCB (Knight Commander of the Bath) on 2 January 1815. With the country at peace following the end of the Napoleonic War he remained unemployed for the next ten years, during which time he was prominent in the London social scene, living at his opulent residence (which boasted a most impressive wine cellar) in Charles Street, Berkeley Square. He became a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1822, was promoted major-general of marines (an honorary post) in April 1821 and vice-admiral in accordance with seniority in May 1825. Sadly, he and his wife suffered a personal tragedy on 18 November 1822, when their eldest son, Edward, drowned while serving as a midshipman aboard the frigate Cambrian 40, under his old colleague, Captain Gawen Hamilton,

On 1 November 1826 at the age of 56 Codrington returned to active duty. He was appointed to command the Mediterranean Fleet of thirteen ships, a crucial role given the potential political upheaval caused by the Greek War of Independence. Accompanied by his wife and two of their daughters, he sailed from Portsmouth for his station on 1 February 1827 with his flag aboard the Asia 84, Captain Edward Curzon. By the 23rd he was at Malta, and he visited Leghorn and Naples before proceeding to Corfu.

Codrington had received ambiguous government orders that appeared to suggest that force could be used against the Turks to ensure that they adhered to an armistice with the rebelling Greeks. In fact, the Duke of Clarence (the future King William IV) is said to have encouraged him in a letter to take on the Turks, with the postscript ‘Go it Ned!’. Codrington sailed to the Morea (the modern Pelopennese Peninsula) on 27 June and opened negotiations with the commander of the Turkish-Egyptian fleet, Ibrahim Bey. Shortly afterwards the Greeks broke the terms of the armistice, and to prevent reprisals by the Turks Codrington took the combined British, French and Russian allied fleet consisting of eleven ships of the line, nine frigates, and four brigs into the Bay of Navarino on the southern tip of the Peloponnese. Here he anchored to blockade the Turkish fleet of three sail of the line, five 64’s, fifteen frigates, twenty-six corvettes and eleven brigs. With both fleets in such close proximity, it only required a minor incident to spark off a full-scale engagement, and this occurred when a boat from the Dartmouth 42, Captain Thomas Fellowes, was fired upon, resulting in the Battle of Navarino on 20 October. Despite fighting fiercely, the Turks were overwhelmed by the better-armed and better-trained Allied fleet, with most of their large ships burned or sunk

The Battle of Navarino

Once news of the battle reached London, Codrington was nominated a GCB (Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath) on 3 November, but soon the government began to have second thoughts. The Turkish defeat was believed to have dangerously tilted the delicate balance between the Ottoman Empire and Russia in the latter’s favour. Vice-Admiral Sir John Gore was sent out to investigate Codrington’s actions, but despite his favourable report the latter was recalled shortly before the Morea was evacuated by the Egyptians in 1828. Departing Malta on 11 September, the admiral sailed home aboard the Warspite 74, Captain William Parker, and arrived at Portsmouth in early October. Despite support from the Duke of Clarence (who was briefly holding the post of Lord High Admiral), Codrington was alleged to have exceeded his orders by a government anxious to find a scapegoat. He vigorously defended his conduct and was supported by the governments of Russia and France – on visits to St. Petersburg in September 1830, and Paris in January 1831, he was feted by Tsar Nicholas and King Louis Philippe, from both of whom he received high orders of knighthood.

For the next few years Codrington remained ashore, continuing to move in the highest levels of Society. He was involved in various charitable causes (chairing the Royal Humane Society), and associated himself with a number of projects, including the building of the Thames Tunnel. In June 1831, with revolutions brewing all across the Continent, he took command a squadron of observation in the Channel (his flag aboard the Caledonia 120, Captain Curzon), consisting of six sail of the line in addition to a number of smaller vessels. This force performed various evolutions and exercises off the south coast during July, before it was urgently recalled to the Downs amid rumours that it would be sent into the Scheldt. He undertook a brief visit to London in first days of September before taking his squadron on another cruise off the south coast; when the squadron was stood down at the end of October, he struck his flag.

Codrington was further honoured when awarded the GCMG (Knight Grand Cross of the Order of St. Michael and St. George) in 1832, and in the same year he entered Parliament as the Liberal MP for the new constituency of Devonport. He spoke regularly in the House of Commons throughout his time in Parliament, while also finding time to tour France and Belgium in the autumn of 1835 and holding dinners at his fashionable residences in Eaton Square and at Brighton. That same year he received £2,500 compensation from the government, (equivalent to £270k in modern money) in compensation for the freeing of 190 slaves on the Antiguan plantation he and his siblings had inherited from their uncle. (Codrington appears to have been in favour of emancipation, although perhaps less so when applied to his own estate). On 10 January 1837 he was promoted admiral, but two weeks later he suffered another personal tragedy when his wife died during an influenza epidemic at Brighton. Days earlier the Codringtons had hosted a supper and ball in their seaside residence, which had been attended by the elite of the town

On 13 April 1837, he caused some controversy during a House of Commons debate when he accused his successor in the Mediterranean, Admiral Sir Pulteney Macolm, of having used salvage money from the recovery of Turkish cannons sunk at the Battle of Navarino to be distributed as prize money, and of using a man-of-war to transport building materials for a house which that officer was building in Greece. Malcolm’s friend and ex-First Lord of the Admiralty, Sir James Graham, demolished the vastly exaggerated claims, and Codrington ultimately retracted his remarks.

On 22 November 1839 he was appointed the commander-in-chief at Portsmouth, whereupon he resigned as the MP for Devonport. Initially flying his flag aboard the Britannia 120, commanded by Captain John Montagu, he transferred with that officer to the Queen 110 in October 1840, and from May 1841 he took as his flagship the St. Vincent 120, commanded by his son, Captain Henry John Codrington, who had previously succeeded Montagu aboard the Queen. He retained his position at Portsmouth until December 1842.

Codrington did not see any further employment and in retirement he continued to mix in royal circles and high society, being attended by his daughters at many events. He received more honours when nominated as a groom in waiting to Queen Adelaide, (the Queen Dowager), and in December 1847 he assumed the same position in the household of Queen Victoria.

Admiral Sir Edward Codrington died at 110 Eaton Square on 28 April 1851, the day after his 81st birthday, and he was buried in the nearby St. Peter’s Church. In 1954 his remains were re-buried in Brookwood Cemetery, Surrey.

Codrington was survived by his second son, Sir William John, who during the Crimean War succeeded to the post of commander-in-chief of the army in the Crimea, and by his third son Sir Henry John, who entered the Navy in 1823, and eventually became an admiral of the fleet. One of his daughters, Jane, married Captain Sir Thomas Bourchier, and wrote a two-volume biography of her father.

This officer had a contradictory personality. He was an intelligent, active and modest man, who fought his ships coolly but effectively. However, it was also clear that he had a hasty temper, and after Navarino was understandably bitter at the way he had been treated by the government. He was widely believed to have been less than fully committed to a naval career, taking every opportunity to enjoy his pleasures on shore, rather than subject himself to the often uncomfortable conditions afloat.