Joseph Peyton Jun. (1750-1816)
A member of a notable naval family, Peyton’s short career was far less successful than those of his father and brothers; instead, he became renowned for a notorious affair and a lack of financial probity.
He was born on 27 July 1750, the eldest son of Admiral Joseph Peyton and of his wife Katherine Strutt. He was the brother of Rear-Admiral John Peyton and Captain Thomas Peyton, and the uncle of Captain Sir John Strutt Peyton .
Aged 22, Joseph Peyton was commissioned lieutenant on 2 September 1772 and seems to have served in North America commanding a locally commissioned sloop called the James from August 1772 to January 1773. He was then appointed to the acting command of the Kingfisher 14 on the same station for a few months. The next record of his career sees him serving as the second lieutenant of the Boreas 28, Captain Charles Thompson on the Jamaican station during 1775-7, in the early stages of the American Revolutionary War.
After returning to England, on 14 December 1778 he was promoted commander of the sloop Beaver 14. This vessel was present at the relief of Jersey in the spring of 1779 and witnessed the action in Cancale Bay on 13 May as part of Captain John Lewis Gidoin’s division. In the following month Peyton’s sloop was appointed the ‘constant convoy’ between Exeter and London. In the summer of 1780, the Beaver underwent a refit and coppering at Plymouth, and in September 1782 she was at Cork. Peyton retained her command until the end of the American Revolutionary War in 1783, while engaged in the preventative service off the Cornish and North Devonshire coasts.
Meanwhile, in August 1781 he had been brought to court at Exeter by a Mr John Williams for ‘criminal conversation’ (essentially adultery) with his wife Elizabeth (née Melhuish) over a two-year period, when he had been based at Exeter. After a trial lasting seven hours, the jury found against Peyton, who was ordered to pay Williams damages of £1,000. A salacious and satirical account of Mrs Williams’ trial for adultery was later published, whilst the legitimacy of the children born out of wedlock during her co-habitation with Peyton was discussed in the House of Lords in early 1783 . The couple married, at Northam, Devon on 4 June and had two daughters and two sons. Both the boys entered the Navy, Jospeh Lyddell dying a lieutenant in 1821, and John Ritson (though often called captain), seems to have still been a lieutenant when he died at the age of 38 in 1825.
After five years on the beach, the 38-year-old Peyton was posted captain of the Leander 50 on 26 September 1788, recommissioning her as the flagship of his father, Rear-Admiral Joseph Peyton, the peace-time commander-in-chief in the Mediterranean. He retained this position until March 1792, whereupon he went ashore and saw no further service. However, over the next few years, writing from his residence at Ilfracombe, Cornwall, he occasionally requested the Admiralty to give him a ship, but without success.
At the turn of the century, Peyton was so indebted that he was obliged to mortgage his inheritance, although his father later paid off his debts. Following his father’s death in September 1804 he inherited Wakehurst Park in Sussex, but he preferred to live in Brighton. He became a superannuated rear-admiral on 12 October 1807, meaning that he received the half pay of a rear-admiral, but he would never be promoted any further. His wife died in Pulteney Street, London, in January 1809, and after many years of ill health Peyton passed away on 3 April 1816 at his residence in Marlborough Place, Brighton. His remains were interred at Wakehurst, which is now part of the Royal Botanic Gardens system.