Hon. Sir Courtenay Boyle (1770-1844)

Boyle’s aristocratic origins gained him almost constant employment, even during the years of peace after the American Revolutionary War. Most of his service was in European waters where he earned substantial sums of prize money, allowing him to retire from active service at the age of 35, though he then held a number of important civil positions.

Born on 3 September 1770, Courtenay Boyle was the second surviving son of Edmund Boyle, the 7th Earl of Cork, and of his first wife, Anne Courtenay. She was a niece of the influential politician the Earl of Sandwich, First Lord of the Admiralty from 1771-82. Boyle’s parents were granted a divorce by Act of Parliament in 1782. His elder brother Edmund, who became the 8th Earl of Cork, rose to the rank of general in the Army.

The ten-year-old Boyle began his career in 1780 with a month-long stint aboard the recently commissioned Spanish prize Gibraltar 80, Captain John Carter Allen, following which he entered a private naval academy at Greenwich . In February 1781 he left the academy to serve aboard the Latona 38, Captain Sir Hyde Parker, employed in the North Sea. He was present at the Battle of the Doggerbank on 5 August, and he removed with Parker to the Goliath 74 in the autumn. Unfortunately, in the following April his career was interrupted by injuries sustained by falling into the orlop deck, but he had recovered sufficiently to enter the Royal Naval Academy at Portsmouth in February 1783. The American Revolutionary War was drawing to a close, making this an appropriate time to improve his education.

Hon. Sir Courtenay Boyle

On 24 March 1784 Boyle had the good fortune to be accepted as a midshipman aboard the Boreas 28 under Captain Horatio Nelson, spending three years in the West Indies aboard the frigate. December 1787 saw him join Rear-Admiral Lord Hood’s Portsmouth-based flagship Barfleur 90, commanded by Captain John Knight. After a year on the Barfleur, Midshipman Boyle transferred to the Leander 50, Captain Joseph Peyton, bound for the Mediterranean as the flagship of Rear-Admiral Joseph Peyton, the captain’s father. On that station he was promoted to acting lieutenant (on 6 June 1789), and assigned to the Aquilon 32, commanded by the Earl of Sandwich’s natural son, Captain Robert Montagu. The Aquilon returned to England in 1790.

At the end of the diplomatic conflict called the Spanish Armament, Boyle joined the Vanguard 74, Captain Sir Andrew Snape Hamond, and was almost immediately (along with scores of other officers) commissioned lieutenant, but for rank only, his promotion date being 22 November. When a commission to join the sloop Scout in May 1791 was cancelled he found himself on the beach until re-employed in home waters aboard the storeship Roebuck 44, Commander James May, from July 1791 until December 1792.

On 1 January 1793, just before the outbreak of the French Revolutionary War, he was appointed to the Egmont 74, Captain Archibald Dickson. On 14 April, while part of a squadron detached from the Channel Fleet, the Egmont participated in the capture of a French privateer, the General Dumourier, and helped recapture her prize, the Spanish register (treasure) ship St. Jago. These valuable captures earned Lieutenant Boyle the healthy prize sum of £1,400 in prize money, equivalent to about fifteen years salary as a lieutenant. He then had a brief spell in command of the cutter Fox 12, arriving at Portsmouth from Gibraltar at the end of July, although embarrassingly this vessel ran aground when coming to anchor in the harbour. At the end of October, he joined the Portsmouth-based Excellent 74, Captain William Clement Finch, and in June 1794 transferred to the Channel Fleet’s Saturn 74, Captain William Lechmere. In December he moved with Captain Lechmere to the Jupiter 50. This vessel flew the broad pennant of Commodore John Willett Payne during the voyage to collect Princess Caroline from Cuxhaven on 28 March 1795 and escort her to England for her marriage to the Prince of Wales. For his participation in this largely ceremonial mission, Boyle was promoted commander on 6 April at the age of 24.

In October 1795 Boyle was appointed to the newly-built sloop Kangaroo 18, fitting out at Deptford. The vessel sailed on her maiden voyage from Sheerness for Plymouth at the end of March 1796. On 11 June she sighted and pursued a French privateer from Ferrol, running the enemy ashore on the Spanish coast. Despite the heavy surf, Boyle sent the Kangaroo’s master and a dozen volunteers in boats to destroy the grounded vessel. Unbeknown to the raiding party, the French crew had booby-trapped the privateer’s magazine, which exploded as soon as the men boarded. The master and eight men died, and another was badly wounded and captured. After a three-day passage from Coruna to Portsmouth at the end of July, the Kangaroo delivered dispatches from the British ambassador at Madrid, which ironically included a complaint by the Spanish government about Boyle’s supposed violation of their neutrality in his attack on the privateer.

The Kangaroo was patrolling on the Irish station when on 21 December 1796 she came across the French invasion fleet bound for Bantry Bay. After alerting Vice-Admiral Robert Kingsmill at Cork, Boyle hastened for Plymouth to advise the home authorities of this alarming development. Severe weather hampered the vessel’s passage, with rough seas swamping the deck and carrying away everything that was not lashed down, but she reached Plymouth on 1 January 1797. Boyle, aware of the importance of his information, rode the 250 miles to the Admiralty with news of the threat. In the event, his dispatches were the duplicates of those already delivered by one of the Kangaroo’s lieutenants who had been put ashore at Cork, and who had taken independent passage to England.

Resuming her cruise in the Channel, the Kangaroo captured the privateer cutter Sophie 14 off the Lizard on 9 April 1797. When on 26 April sailors mutinied at Plymouth in support of their comrades at Portsmouth, Boyle received assurances from his crew that they would remain loyal. When another mutiny later broke out at the Nore his men indicated that if necessary, they would act against these mutineers. Such actions suggest the Kangaroo was a happy ship with a contented crew, perhaps because Boyle was successful at taking prizes. Thus, while the Kangaroo was in passage for the Mediterranean Fleet in June, the ship took a privateer lugger (Surprise 8), and shortly afterwards she made a prize of the Spanish lugger Purisima Concepción out of Cadiz. Spain was now an enemy, so her vessels were fair game for cruising British warships.

Boyle was posted captain on 30 June 1797, which necessitated his departure from the Kangaroo, and it was not until March 1798 that he found employment in his new rank. He was appointed captain of the Hyaena 24, a British ship captured by the French in 1793, which had recently been recaptured by Captain Sir Edward Pellew’s Indefatigable 44. For the next year his new command saw uneventful duty in the Channel and off the coast of France, with occasional visits to Portsmouth or Plymouth. The sole event of note was the dismissal of the sailing master by a court-martial at Portsmouth on 25 September 1798 for running the sixth rate aground on The Shingles. In early February 1799 the Hyaena embarked Major-General Banastre Tarleton and his wife for passage to Gibraltar, but as often happened, bad weather prevented their departure for a month. By that time Boyle had been obliged to resign his command, having been injured in a carriage accident. He could not have been too badly injured, since in the same month (March 1799) he took the opportunity to get married.

Towards the end of June 1799, the newly-married sailor joined the sixth-rate Cormorant 20 when her commander, Captain Lord Mark Kerr , himself returned home to marry. For much of the summer the ship was stationed at Weymouth, attending the King at his annual holiday. She subsequently cruised in home waters before being ordered to sail for Lisbon and the Mediterranean in January 1800 with a convoy. Adverse winds forced her to put into Brixham and then Falmouth, and she only got away in mid-February. Ten days later she captured the Spanish privateer brig El Batador 14.

On 20 May 1800, whilst carrying dispatches to Commodore Sir Sidney Smith commanding the British force blockading the French army in Egypt, the Cormorant was wrecked off the coast near Damietta. After drifting ashore on rafts, the shipwrecked crew had to be saved by the French Army from slaughter at the hands of the Bedouins. Made prisoner, Boyle was initially treated well by the commander-in-chief, General Jean Baptiste Kléber, and dined with him the day before he was assassinated on 14 June. Having witnessed the impalement of the killer, Boyle then suffered a bitter imprisonment at the hands of Kléber’s successor, General Jacques François Menou, being kept in close confinement as a hostage for the safety of one of General Napoleon Bonaparte’s aide-de-camps who was being held by Ottoman forces . He was exchanged on 12 August with many of his officers and men, arriving at Rhodes in mid- September. As was customary, he was subsequently tried with his officers for the loss of the Cormorant. The court martial took place in November aboard the Genereux 74 at Port Mahon, Minorca under the presidency of Captain Thomas Louis. The court found that the loss resulted from the use of inaccurate charts: as a result Boyle and his crew were honourably acquitted. In February 1801 he returned to Portsmouth from Lisbon aboard the Endymion 44, Captain Sir Thomas Williams. Now without a ship, he spent the remaining year of the French Revolutionary War ashore, including a visit to the fashionable resort of Cheltenham in July.

On the resumption of hostilities with France in May 1803, Boyle was appointed to the frigate Seahorse 38, commissioning her at Portsmouth. Departing in July with a large convoy for Lisbon and the Mediterranean the Seahorse arrived at the Rock on 2 August, before continuing with a convoy of merchant ships for Malta. By September she was serving with the fleet commanded by Vice-Admiral Lord Nelson blockading the French fleet in Toulon. On 11 July 1804 her boats, in company with those of the Narcissus 32, (Captain Ross Donnelly), and the Maidstone 32, (Captain Hon. George Elliot), were sent into Hyères Bay on a raid to capture or destroy the French merchant vessels sheltering there. The French sailors resisted fiercely — four of the attackers were killed and twenty-three wounded, including one man killed and five wounded from the Seahorse. The destruction of eleven small French vessels of 80 to 160 tons valued at about twelve thousand guineas would seem insufficient to justify this high number of casualties.

On the evening of 17 January 1805, the Seahorse was patrolling off Toulon in company with the Active 38, Captain Richard Hussey Moubray, when Vice-Admiral Pierre Villeneuve came out with the Toulon fleet. After following the enemy for the next eighteen hours the frigates bore away, and on the afternoon of the 19th they were able to alert Nelson in Agincourt Sound, Sardinia that the French were at large. The Seahorse was then ordered to search for the enemy off the south coast of Sardinia, where on the 21st she was chased by the Cornélie 40. She managed to make good her escape in heavy weather but was unable to report any definite information as to Villeneuve’s whereabouts when she rejoined Nelson on the morning of the 22nd. After a further reconnaissance of Cagliari, she was sent to Naples with dispatches. Nelson raced off to the West Indies in search of the French fleet leaving Rear-Admiral Sir Richard Bickerton in command in the Mediterranean; the Seahorse flew his flag briefly. Meanwhile her boats under the command of Lieutenant George Downie cut out a Spanish brig loaded with gunpowder at San Pedro on the southeastern coast of Spain. While this was going on the Seahorse engaged the convoy escort of three gunboats and two schooners, sustaining the loss of one man killed.

Sheerness Dockyard, where Boyle served as the commissioner from 1814-22.

In May 1805 Boyle exchanged with the notorious Captain Robert Corbett, taking command of his former ship Amphitrite 38. This move suggests Boyle must have wished to return to England, since the Amphitrite had been ordered home to be repaired. Arriving at Portsmouth with the Gibraltar convoy in early August, he brought with him a pair of antelopes from Tripoli, which were eventually housed at Cowdray Park in Sussex with his wife’s family. Now a shore-bound sailor, he attended Nelson’s funeral at St. Paul’s Cathedral in January 1806 and in November of that year entered Parliament as the M.P for Bandon in County Cork in the interest of the Duke of Devonshire. He only held the seat until the election of the following May when, instead of standing again, he released the seat to a kinsman, Henry Boyle. It appears that politics was of little interest to him, and he would later be employed in civil positions under governments on both sides of the political divide.

Boyle’s prize money from his many captures during the wars now allowed him to retire from service at sea. In June 1806 he was appointed the flag-captain to the commander-in-chief at Portsmouth, Admiral George Montagu, commanding the Royal William 90, the 140-year-old hulk used as a flagship. Presumably, this unexacting role (which he retained until April 1809) suited his now sedentary lifestyle. In 1807 he served on the court-martial panel trying the famous Captain Sir Home Popham for disobeying orders when he removed the naval forces protecting the Cape of Good Hope to sail across the Atlantic and conquer Buenos Aires. Boyle obviously concurred with the court’s judgement that found Popham guilty but let him off with a severe scolding. The only other incident of note occurred in April 1808 when Captain Boyle was dispatched to Southsea Common to arrest Captain Thomas Manby of the Thalia 36, and thereby prevent him fighting a duel with a Captain Ramsay of the Royal Marines.

Upon departing the Royal William, Boyle started a new career in civil duties ashore, holding various senior positions in the naval administration. In June 1809 he was installed as a commissioner of the Transport Board, a position he retained until its dissolution in March 1817. Meanwhile, on 30 July 1814 he had been appointed the Navy Board commissioner at Sheerness Dockyard, remaining in this role until February 1822 when the establishment at the Kent facility was reduced. He was immediately appointed deputy chairman of the Victualling Board, and in June 1823 took up the position of a Navy Board commissioner without special function, which involved him in inspections of the dockyards at Portsmouth in 1823 and Plymouth in 1826. In March 1829 he became the superintendent of the Transport Service until a new Whig government retired him in February 1831. When not involved in naval administration, he and his wife (who in 1807 had been appointed one of the Queen’s ladies of the bedchamber) moved in the highest levels of society. He was also inducted as a fellow of the Royal Society in 1814.

Had Boyle not taken a civil position he would have been promoted to rear-admiral by seniority on 19 July 1821, but holders of civil offices were not eligible for such promotions. Instead, on this date he became a retired captain, and was promoted to retired rear-admiral on 26 February 1831. In 1840, at the age of 70, he was restored to the active list and promoted to vice-admiral, thus catching up with his contemporaries who had remained active officers. Royal approval of his family’s status came in 1832 when his daughter was appointed a maid of honour to Queen Adelaide, and later that year Boyle was knighted and nominated a KCH (Knight Commander of Hanover) by her husband, King William IV. In retirement he became a regular attendee at Court as well as visiting ‘the sailor King’ at Brighton. Sir Courtenay frequented Bath with his brother, the Earl of Cork, as well as staying at his sibling’s dilapidated residence of Marston House in Frome, Somerset. Presumably drawing on his administrative experience, he sat on the boards of various charities and served as a director of the Atlas Assurance Company. In the General Election of 1835, he sought to enter Parliament as the M.P for Frome in the Whig Interest, but he came bottom of the poll with 22% of the votes.

Vice Admiral the Honourable Sir Courtenay Boyle Kt., KCH, FRS died in London on 21 May 1844 in his 74th year.

On 16 April 1799 Boyle had married Carolina Amelia Poyntz of Midgham in Berkshire, the first cousin of the current First Lord of the Admiralty, Earl Spencer. Their eldest son, Courtenay Edmund William Boyle, born on 3 August 1800, became a rear-admiral, and they had two other sons and three daughters, one of whom, Mary Louisa Boyle, became a popular author. His family lived at various fashionable addresses in Mayfair, London, including Bentinck Street in 1809 and Margaret Street, Cavendish Square in 1810; by 1832 they were living in Upper Berkeley Street.