Hon. Sir Henry Edwyn Stanhope (1754-1814)
As a young and highly intelligent officer, who experienced various adventures in the early stages of the American War of Independence, Stanhope might have expected a long and brilliant career, but he was dogged by ill health, reducing his opportunities for success.
He was born on 21 May 1754, the only son of Hon. Edwin Francis Stanhope and his wife Catherine Brydges, the daughter of the Marquess of Carnarvon . He was a distant cousin of novelist Jane Austen and her two sailor brothers, Francis and Charles Austen.
Stanhope (who also spelled his middle name Edwin) was educated at Winchester College (where he was the head boy) and briefly at Oxford University. In May 1768 at age fourteen, he entered the navy aboard the Rose 20, Captain Benjamin Caldwell, serving on the North American station. After a short spell aboard the Romney 50 flagship of the commander-in-chief, Commodore Samuel Hood, he returned to the Rose and thence to England. There he resumed his studies at Oxford and entered the Royal Naval Academy at Portsmouth. In the summer of 1772, he went out to the Leeward Islands under the flag of Vice-Admiral William Parry aboard the Chatham 50, Captain Charles Thompson, but his spell in the Caribbean was terminated through illness and he returned home to further pursue his academic studies.
HMS Rose in action with American gallies 1776
In March 1775, at the start of the American Revolutionary War, he sailed for America aboard the Otter 14, Captain Matthew Squire, but a month later was discharged at Boston, apparently due to illness. He did not remain inactive for long, being appointed an acting lieutenant of the Glasgow 20, Captain Tyringham Howe. Placed in command of a division of flatboats landing the army at the Battle of Bunker Hill on 17 June, he advanced unarmed with the British soldiers in the expectation that they would put the rebels to flight. When the enemy put up a fierce resistance, he snatched up a fallen soldier’s weapon to support the attacking troops.
Ordered to take a prize brig into Boston shortly afterwards, on the way he used that vessel to capture a rebel schooner before seizing a sloop and capturing a further two prizes, which he sailed to Newport, Rhode Island. Here he rejoined the Rose, now under Captain James Wallace. Placed in command of her tender, he fought an inconclusive ninety-minute action with the privateer Hancock 14 that saw many of his crew wounded. While at Newport, Captain Howe (his previous commander) ordered him to go ashore in search of deserters, a potentially dangerous assignment. During the search he was attacked and taken prisoner by the Americans. Initially Stanhope was incarcerated at Providence, and he was then taken on parole to Northampton in Massachusetts. His parole conditions were changed, leading him to his make his escape (with Midshipman George Gregory) on 27 April 1776. The two were re-captured at Middleton in Connecticut and again imprisoned at Northampton, but nine months later Stanhope escaped once more, this time with Robert Arnold, the master of the sloop Falcon. After walking some hundred miles and living for weeks in disguise at Marblehead they eventually took a cartel ship to Halifax where Stanhope was appointed an acting lieutenant on the Liverpool 28, Captain Henry Bellew, which frigate returned to England in March 1777.
Approaching his 23rd birthday, he was commissioned lieutenant on 10 March 1777, joining the Nonsuch 64, Captain Walter Griffith, in which he returned to North America. There he was appointed to command the galley Pigot 8, (part of a force of seven vessels under Captain Samuel Reeve) which helped capture a rebel galley north of Bristol, Rhode Island. His brief command of the Pigot ended on 5 August 1778 when he set her alight at Newport to prevent capture by the French fleet during the siege of Rhode Island. Major-General Sir Robert Pigot charged Lieutenant Stanhope with delivering despatches to Vice-Admiral Lord Howe, a task he achieved by being rowed in a whale boat through the enemy fleet, hailing their flagship in French to avoid capture. On arrival at Sandy Hook, New York he was taken aboard the Monmouth 64, Captain Thomas Collingwood, and in October he took passage to England aboard the storeship Leviathan, Captain John Brown.
In April 1779 he was appointed the senior lieutenant of the Portland 50, Captain Anthony Hunt, going out to Newfoundland with the flag of Rear-Admiral Richard Edwards; four months later Edwards promoted him commander and instructed him to commission the ex-American privateer Trepassey 14. Remaining on the Newfoundland station, in July 1780 he convoyed several merchantmen into the St. Lawrence. He obviously found his command unsuited for the service he was ordered to perform, but upon applying to the admiral for a transfer, his senior’s response so annoyed him that he requested a court-martial. Acquitted of any wrongdoing, he sailed for England aboard the Fairy 14, arriving in the autumn.
In the spring of 1781, Stanhope took passage out to the Leeward Islands aboard the cutter Ranger, Lieutenant Alexander Hood. The vessel joined Admiral Sir George Rodney’s fleet at sea, and on arrival at Barbados the commander-in-chief appointed him to the fireship Salamander. On 16 June he was promoted to post-captain and assigned to command the Terrible 74. transferring to the Russell 74 shortly afterwards, in which ship he fought at the Battle of St. Kitts on 25-26 January 1782. Suffering from ill health and thought unlikely to survive, two weeks later he was sent home to England with dispatches aboard the fireship Tisiphone, Commander Charles Sandys, arriving at the Admiralty on 12 March.
He recovered his health in time to take command of the frigate Mercury 28 in September 1782. His ship escorted a convoy from the Orkneys to London, and then was paid off, recommissioning in April 1783. When she sailed to Nova Scotia on 27 June, she carried news of the end of the American Revolutionary War. On 17 August Stanhope married Margaret Malbone in Newport, Rhode Island. His bride was a native of that town, and he obviously had become acquainted with her during his previous service there. The couple would have five children – a son, who became Captain Sir Edwyn Francis Scudamore Stanhope, and four daughters. He spent the next three years on the Halifax station. In the early autumn of 1785, when visiting Boston to purchase livestock for the new settlements of Nova Scotia, he and his officers were insulted and threatened by a mob, who apparently believed that trade with British ships was illegal. After complaints to Governor James Bowdoin proved fruitless, Stanhope reportedly threatened to open fire on part of the town if further insults were suffered, and he eventually sailed north with his newly-purchased beasts. Returning to the Thames from North America in June 1786, Stanhope paid the Mercury off in July and resumed his academic studies at Oxford.
Following nearly a decade of unemployment, and over a year and half after the French Revolutionary War had begun, Stanhope joined the Ruby 64 at Spithead in September 1794. He served in the Channel Fleet before joining a force that escorted the Mediterranean and West Indies convoys out of the Channel in December. Forced into Plymouth by the weather, the Ruby was still in the Sound in February 1795. Moving to Portsmouth, she was victualled for eight months and sailed at the end of the month for the Cape as part of a force under the orders of Commodore John Blankett. This was the advance element of a squadron under Vice-Admiral Sir George Keith Elphinstone intended to capture the Cape of Good Hope from the Dutch, although it is not clear that the Ruby was actually present at the capture of the Cape on 16 September.
Meanwhile, on 19 June 1795, Stanhope had been brought to a court martial on charges proffered by Lieutenant William Fitzwilliam Owen. He was accused of wasting stores, behaving in a fraudulent and oppressive manner unbecoming the conduct of an officer, and of neglecting to supply his ship with the necessary slops. The court found the charges ‘frivolous, malicious and ill-founded’, and Stanhope was acquitted. Owen was then brought to a court-martial for his own behaviour and sentenced to be dismissed the service, although he was later re-instated and rose to flag rank. Suffering from what was described as ‘a bilious fever’, Stanhope left for home in October with Elphinstone’s despatches announcing the capture of Trincomale, arriving back in England to report to the Admiralty in the first week of 1796.
At the end of March 1797, he was appointed to the newly-launched Neptune 98, (then being fitted out at Woolwich), and presented to the King. The Neptune was flying the broad pennant of Commodore Sir Erasmus Gower when that officer was ordered to act against the disaffected ships in the latter stages of the Nore mutiny, which had erupted on 12 May. Following the collapse of the mutiny, Stanhope sat on the court martials of a number of the leading mutineers. He left the Neptune when Gower assumed command of the ship in late September, and he then briefly commanded the Spanish prize San Damaso 74 before she was ordered to be paid off and broken up in October.
In June 1798 he was appointed to the newly commissioned Achille 74, which was lying at Chatham. She arrived at Portsmouth in November and by December was in the Downs, but being leaky, she was then taken into Portsmouth Harbour. By now Stanhope’s health had broken down once more, being severely afflicted by ‘a bilious colic’, and he was obliged to retire ashore in February 1799, but he was well enough to hold the overall command of the Cornwall and later the Devonshire Sea Fencibles.
Advanced to flag rank in a general promotion on 1 January 1801, Stanhope offered his services when war with France resumed in the spring of 1803, but he was not re-employed until February 1805. Appointed to the unexacting command of the Thames (running from the Port of London to the mouth of the river,) he flew his flag at Deptford aboard the Matilda 28, Lieutenant Thomas Dorsett Birchall, and, then briefly off Northfleet in the autumn of 1805, aboard the Sybille 44, Captain Robert Winthrop. Promoted to vice-admiral on 9 November 1805, he was a member of the court martial which in March 1807 censured Commodore Sir Home Riggs Popham for leaving his station at the Cape to attack Buenos Aires.
An active post finally arrived in mid-1807, when he was appointed second-in-command to Admiral Lord Gambier in the expedition which forced the surrender of the Danish fleet at Copenhagen on 7 September 1807. Flying his flag aboard the Pompée 74, Captain Richard Dacres, Stanhope was entrusted (along with Rear-Admiral Sir Samuel Hood) with preparing the captured Danish vessels for their voyage to England. He reached Yarmouth on 14 October with five sail of the line and five Danish vessels, and he struck his flag off Deal on 13 November. In the aftermath of this successful, if controversial operation, he was created a baronet for his services.
Returning to the Thames command, Stanhope flew his flag at Greenwich aboard the Thisbe 28, Commander William Rogers, sitting on the court-martial at Portsmouth of Admiral Lord Gambier following the Battle of the Basque Roads on 11 April 1809. In May 1810 he was appointed the commander-in-chief at the Nore in place of Vice-Admiral Thomas Wells, with his flag aboard the Namur 90, Captain Alexander Shippard. He relinquished this position in October 1811.
Stanhope was promoted a full admiral on 12 August 1812, and he died at Clifton, Gloucestershire on 20 December 1814, aged 60, after what was described as a long and painful illness. His wife had died three years earlier, and in his will he expressed a wish to be buried beside his ‘dear Peggie’. His address at the time of his death was given as Stanwell House, Middlesex.
A fluent French speaker, Stanhope was also a Hebrew scholar who translated the Old Testament. In 1776, when at large in America as an escaped prisoner of war, he was described as having ‘lightish eyes, hair, and complexion pitted with smallpox, has a large nose, and is about five feet six inches in height’. In 1801 he was at Bath where his distant cousin, Jane Austen, described him as ‘a gentlemanlike man, but then his legs are too short and his tail too long’ – the latter a description of old-style pigtail. Nelson, who doesn’t seem to have met him, described Stanhope as ‘a very sensible man, but a very odd character. He never cut a respectable figure in our service.’ At least in his later life, he seems to have been very religious, to the extent that at the Cape Vice-Admiral Elphinstone complained of him baptising a child, despite the presence of a number of real clergymen! The Nore mutineer Richard Parker writing to his sister after being condemned to death in 1797, praised Stanhope for his humanity, describing him as ‘a man possessed of true feelings’.