Richard Boger (1739-1822)
Born and raised near Plymouth, once he was posted captain Boger spent most of his career in administrative commands at that port and on the Cornish coast, proving himself to be a popular officer in what were largely shore-based roles
He was born on 5 August 1739, the son of a surgeon, Richard Boger, and of his wife Sarah Turcliff, of St. Germans in Cornwall. The family were local landowners who owned Wolsden House in Torpoint.
Confusingly, two Richard Bogers were serving in the Navy during this period, so the early career of our man is difficult to trace, but he was commissioned lieutenant in 1762 at the end of the Seven Years War. In July 1771 he married the 32-year-old Maria Carpeneter in Plymouth, and over the next few years they would go on to have a daughter and two sons.
In March 1780 (during the American Revolutionary War) Lieutenant Boger took command of the cutter Pilote 14 whilst she was fitting out at Plymouth, putting to sea in early June with troops for Guernsey. For two days towards the end of August, the Pilote caused some alarm off Largs and Greenock in Scotland when (the frequently inebriated) Commander Hon. John Whitmore Chetwynd of the sloop Childers 10 ordered her to engage in a mock battle in order to practice for any possible engagement with the enemy. The two vessels had been instructed to look out for the rebel privateersman Luke Ryan, but without success. By December the Pilote was at Portsmouth, and around Christmas time she captured three small Dutch merchant ships laden with luxury goods in the Channel. The Pilote continued to serve in home waters until early March 1782, when she arrived at Milford Haven under a jury mast having carried away her mast in a gust of wind whilst cruising off Padstow.
Boger was promoted commander on 2 April 1782 and immediately appointed to a series of brief inactive posts. Initially he was to command the Ostrich 14, which at the time was overseas, and so from 11 April he was instead listed as commander of the bomb Vesuvius 8, which was lying at Spithead. During May he briefly commanded the Foudroyant 80 at Portsmouth in an acting capacity for Captain Sir John Jervis.
Boger was posted captain of the three-decked Ocean 90 on 6 July 1782, only three months after his previous promotion. This vessel initially served as the flagship of Vice-Admiral Mark Milbanke in the Channel and was later present at the Relief of Gibraltar and the Battle of Cape Spartel in October. She was back at Plymouth Sound by 19 November before being paid off in January of the following year. From 18 to 26 March 1783, he was listed as commanding the Winchelsea 32 whilst she was fitting out at Portsmouth, but with the American Revolutionary War drawing to a close it appears that he did not take her to sea.
With the country largely at peace, (hostilities with the Netherlands had not yet formally ended) Boger commanded the Blenheim 90 at Plymouth, again with the flag of Admiral Milbanke, from May 1783 until she was paid off in September 1784. During the Dutch Armament in October 1787, he commissioned the new Hannibal 74 for the flag of Rear-Admiral Sir John Jervis before paying her off two months later. He then remained unemployed for the next six years.
Upon the outbreak of hostilities with France in 1793 until he went ashore in April 1799, Boger commanded the ancient Plymouth-based guardship, receiving ship and flagship Cambridge 80, flying the flags of (among others) Rear-Admiral Rowland Cotton in 1794, Vice-Admiral Sir Richard King from 1795-9, and briefly Rear-Admiral Sir John Orde in 1797. His ship was involved in the Plymouth Mutiny in April 1797, but only two of her officers were sent ashore by the mutineers, and at the end of the mutiny he was one of the popular officers who were chaired around the town. As part of his duties he sat on numerous court martials, including that of Captain Robert Reymolds of the Amazon in October 1797.
In mid-1799 Boger was appointed to command the newly-instituted Sea Fencibles (naval militia) on the south coast of Cornwall, working from a base in Fowey. After the Sea Fencibles were disbanded in 1801, Boger retired from active service, living at Plymouth for the rest of his life. He was advanced to flag rank on 23 April 1804. In May of that year, Captain Coryndon Boger, Boger’s second son, died at the admiral’s residence, and there was a further personal tragedy in September when Boger’s wife, Maria Carpenter, died at the age of 65. His only daughter, Marie, had married Josias William Dupre in Exeter in July 1803. In August 1806 Boger remarried to a widow, Mary Drake, in St. Andrew’s Church, Plymouth. He was promoted vice-admiral on 28 April 1808, and admiral on 4 June 1814.
Admiral Boger died at Plymouth four years after his second wife on 19 October 1822, aged 83.