Sir Nesbit Josiah Willoughby (1777-1849)
Of all the officers who served in Nelson’s navy, none had as many scraps, suffered as many appalling wounds, imprisonments and court-martials, and caused their enemies, superiors and subordinates so many problems as the impossibly lion-hearted Willoughby ‘the Immortal’.
Willoughby was born on 29 August 1777, a younger son of Robert Willoughby from Cossall in Nottinghamshire and his second wife, Barbara Bruce of Kinloch in Scotland. Three of Willoughby’s brothers entered the Army (all dying without achieving high rank), whilst one of his half-brothers became a lieutenant-colonel in the army, and the other lost his life at the wreck of the sloop Sylph 18, Captain George Dickins, off Long Island in 1815.
On 12 May 1790 Willoughby entered the Navy as a 12-year-old boy aboard the frigate Latona 38, Captain Albemarle Bertie. He saw further peacetime employment in home waters with the Edgar 74, Captain Anthony James Pye Molloy, Alligator 28, Captain Isaac Coffin, and Vengeance 74, Commodore Thomas Pasley.
Following the start of the French Revolutionary War in 1793 Willoughby saw service on the frigate Orpheus 32, Captain Henry Newcome off the coast of Africa. For several months during the summer his vessel enjoyed a profitable run against French commerce before returning home in August. The Orpheus sailed for the East Indies at the end of November, and as part of a small squadron she captured the French frigate Duguay-Trouin 34 off the Isle de France on 5 May 1794. Willoughby was present at the capture of Malacca on 17 August 1795, boarding and taking the mud-stricken Dutch armed ship Constantia with a boat commanded by acting-Lieutenant Lord Camelford (a man reckless to the point of insanity) of the Resistance 44, Captain Edward Pakenham. However, what would otherwise have been a fatally flawed attack was rescued by the Resistance opening fire on the enemy at long range. He also served at the reductions of Amboyna and Banda in February and March 1796, earning a tidy amount of prize money.
Remaining in the East Indies, Willoughby joined the Heroine 32, Captain Alan Hyde Gardner, and then the Suffolk 74, flagship of Rear-Admiral Peter Rainier. On 13 January 1798, at the age of 20, he was promoted lieutenant of the Victorious 74, Captain William Clark. Just six months later he was arrested for disrespectful behaviour to his captain, but after initially being suspended from duty, he was ordered to resume his duties when the charge was remitted. Typically, he refused to return to duty until Clark accepted that his arrest was unfair, and when the captain refused to comply, Willoughby applied for a court martial. This could not happen until enough captains could be gathered to convene the court, so the young man was confined to his cabin for the next twelve months. When the court-martial did sit he was found guilty of being contemptuous and disrespectful to Clark and was dismissed the ship. Apparently mindful of Willoughby’s long internment, Admiral Rainier promptly appointed him to the brig Amboyna on 14 June 1799, but ill-health from his long lack of occupation and exercise when confined to his cabin, required him to return to the Cape to recuperate on the Sceptre 64, Captain Valentine Edwards. Even so, whilst in passage he was well enough to pilot several boats through the surf at Rodriguez to capture the French privateer Eclair 10. On another occasion during the voyage, although shown in the muster book as an invalid, he leaped overboard in a failed attempt to rescue a drowning seaman. On 5 November, whilst he was at a ball at Cape Town, the Sceptre drove ashore in Table Bay with great loss of life, and thus he had to find an alternative passage back to England.
Once home, in August 1800 Willoughby joined the Russell 74, Captain Herbert Sawyer, which later under Captain William Cuming fought at the Battle of Copenhagen on 2 April 1801. During the battle, Willoughby earned great praise for boarding the Danish Prövesteen 56 under fire, and for keeping her subdued until the following morning with no more than thirty men to support him. Although Cuming had ordered three cheers for him on his return to the ship, Willoughby was foolish enough to make fun of his captain’s foibles, resulting in his court-martial for contempt of his commanding officer. In reply, the lieutenant applied for a court-martial on Cuming, who was in fact an unstable and intolerant officer. Inevitably the junior man was dismissed the service for insolence and contempt to his captain, who was in turn absolved, the charge being labelled ‘frivolous, scandalous, malicious and totally unfounded’. Now Willoughby was out of the navy, just as the French Revolutionary War was coming to an end.
In 1803, by which time the Napoleonic War had commenced, he volunteered to serve with Rear-Admiral Sir John Duckworth in the West Indies, and was taken on board the flagship, Leviathan 74. On 17 July, after a seven-mile row in a boat manned by two midshipmen and seven men, Willoughby captured the French ship Athenaise off Cape Donna Maria, Haiti, her fifty men being ignorant of the resumption of hostilities. He next removed with Duckworth to the Hercule 74, and on 26 October the admiral arranged Willoughby’s reinstatement to the navy and appointed him lieutenant. The Hercule was sent to join Commodore John Loring who was co-operating with the insurgent black forces against the French at Cap François on the northern coast of Haiti. On 30 November the French frigate Clorinde 44 ran aground under the Haitian guns while attempting to escape the harbour, and the watching British thought she would be destroyed by the guns of their allies. Willoughby took a boat to investigate and persuaded the French captain that if he surrendered his ship to the British, they would save him and his crew from Haitian retribution. As a result, the Clorinde. along with its crew and many passengers surrendered, Willoughby negotiated with the Haitians to recognise the capitulation and then managed to tow the vessel out to sea and safety, saving the 900 aboard from capture or death.
Remaining in the West Indies, in 1804 he served with distinction in Captain John Bligh’s campaign against Curaçoa, where he commanded a battery and ostentatiously put his own life at risk to inspire his men, frequently taking his meals on a chair on top of the ramparts. Earlier he had led the men who had stormed Fort Piscadero, and at the end of the unsuccessful campaign he commanded the rearguard, taking responsibility for the destruction of this fort and being one of the last men to quit the island on 25 February. Three weeks later he led the boats in the capture of the privateer Félicité, and on 6 September he rose from his sickbed to rush aloft and (with two other crewmen) cut away the foretopmast in a hurricane off the Silver Keys, thereby saving the mast. During the following February, he teamed up with Midshipman Samuel Roberts in a very risky venture – take a prize vessel into the harbour of St. Martha, Cuba and attempt to cut out a Spanish corvette. Willoughby and his volunteer crew successfully entered the harbour in the vessel, which was well-known to the Spanish, but then found that the corvette was not there after all. On turning to leave, the Spanish realised that the vessel was manned by their enemies, and the British were lucky to escape without being hit by the cannons on shore.
Later in 1805 Willoughby was appointed the first lieutenant of the Acasta 40, in which Admiral Duckworth returned to England, having indicated to Willoughby that he intended to have him promoted to commander. However, a dispute between the admiral and the ship’s captain, Captain James Athol Wood, resulted in Duckworth’s recommendations being set aside, and Willoughby’s expected promotion to commander did not materialise. Instead, he found employment in the Channel Fleet, being initially appointed to the Prince 98, Captain Richard Grindall, and from the end of December 1806 to the Formidable 98, Captain Francis Fayerman as third lieutenant.
Willoughby was next to be found aboard Duckworth’s flagship, the Royal George 100, during the ill-fated expedition to the Dardanelles in February 1807. Commanding the flagship’s cutter, his boat was one of the first on the scene when Captain Hon. Henry Blackwood’s Ajax 74 caught fire on 14 February, and he rescued many seamen through his outstanding bravery, despite being severely scorched . Upon the fleet entering the Dardanelles, he was sent ahead with a flag of truce to demand the surrender of the Turkish fleet. Taking time out to calculate the strength of the Turkish defences, he commanded a boat that caught and captured a Turkish vessel with thirteen men aboard off the island of Prota on the 27th. During this action two of his men were killed. Later in the day, he was fortunate not to be fatally wounded when attempting to overcome an enemy force which had gathered in a convent – a musket ball penetrated above his right jaw and became embedded near his brain, where it remained for the rest of his life; a second ball entered his cheek. After lying apparently dead for nearly ten minutes, his retreating comrades fortunately saw him move, and he was carried back to the boat. His injuries were so severe that three days later the flagship’s surgeon (incorrectly) listed him amongst the mortally wounded.
In July 1807 after a period of recuperation, he took passage aboard the sloop Otter 16, Captain John Davies, to Montevideo where it had been intended he would take command of the Spanish corvette Fuerte 28. Unfortunately, on arrival in the River Plate he found that the British had surrendered the town and had returned this intended command to the Spanish. Remaining with the Otter, Willoughby voyaged to the Cape, where he was promoted to the acting command of her on 10 January 1808, a promotion confirmed in April. Placed under the orders of Captain Robert Corbett of the Nereide 36, he was despatched to cruise off Mauritius where at the end of October he captured a valuable merchantman. He then sailed with Corbet to refit at Bombay, prior to returning to the Cape in the January 1809. Here he was arraigned for court martial on the charge of cruelty and un-officer-like conduct, a letter of accusation having been signed to this effect by ‘The Ship Otter’s Company, one and all’. The trial lasting from the 9th to 14th of February heard tales of excessive flogging and starting, mixed with threats and abuse, with a claim that he derived as much pleasure from flogging a man as he had from taking his breakfast, and that he would ‘flog like hell and start like hell’. Amongst the members of the court was Captain Corbett, a brutal man who had successfully escaped censure during his own court martial on much the same charge over the preceding days, and it was therefore no surprise that Willoughby escaped with the mild admonition to moderate his language in future.
Following a refit, the Otter joined the task force bound for Mauritius, and on 14 August 1809 Willoughby commanded the boats in the cutting out of a French ship in the Black River. He then led the seamen ashore in the successful action against St. Paul, Bourbon on 21 September, and he was posted captain of the Nereide 36 in succession to Corbett by his old patron, Vice-Admiral Albemarle Bertie. (This promotion was confirmed by the Admiralty with effect from 5 September 1810.) On 28 April 1810 at the head of a hundred men (and conspicuous in his full-dress uniform) he silenced the French batteries at Jacolet. On 15 June he was badly injured again when a marine’s musket burst in his face during an exercise, leaving his lower jaw shattered and his windpipe exposed. For some days he lay close to death, and he was unable to speak for three weeks, nevertheless, by July he was fit enough to assist at the capture of Bourbon, his face swathed in bandages.
After a British force under the command of Commodore Samuel Pym had captured the Isle de la Passe off Grand Port, Mauritius, on 14 August , it had sailed for Port Louis on the other side of the island, leaving the Nereide on detached duty at the Isle de la Passe. A week later Willoughby identified two French 40-gun frigates and a sloop heading for Port Louis – they presented a real danger to Pym’s ships, if they were to combine with the three French frigates he was blockading in that port. Willoughby immediately ordered a string of French signal flags hoisted on Isle de Passe (using a captured signal book) to lure the enemy ships to enter Grand Port and prevent them sailing to Port Louis. Two days later, having received notification from Willoughby of the French squadron, Pym arrived off Grand Port with three frigates. The next day the British squadron sailed into the attack, aware that the French from Port Louis might arrive to overwhelm them between the two enemy squadrons. Pym (the senior captain) made some unfortunate decisions, and his juniors also made serious mistakes in entering the harbour. The ensuing engagement proved to be disastrous, with two of the British frigates going aground and being destroyed, a third losing her way, and only the Nereide reaching her allotted position. Soon her cable was shot away leaving her stern exposed to the enemy, and without the support of her consorts over the next day she was pulverised before surrendering. Amongst the utter carnage the ship suffered casualties of 92 men killed and 130 wounded out of a company of 281 men. Inevitably, Willoughby was one of the casualties – his left eye was torn out of its socket.
After the British captured Mauritius in December, Willoughby was released from captivity. A court martial at Port Louis honourably acquitted him for the loss of his ship, the verdict being accompanied by unprecedented commendations as to the steadfastness of the Nereide’s resistance but tempered by remarks about her captain’s injudicious signalling. Returning to England, in April 1811 he was examined by a medical board in England and awarded a three hundred guinea pension, which would be increased to five hundred and fifty guineas on 1 July 1815.
Over the next few years, Willoughby’s injuries prevented him from undertaking any active service. By October 1811 the newspapers were reporting that the sight in his one remaining eye had improved sufficiently for him to be able to see, but in February 1812, when he had only 25% of the sight in his one remaining eye, he attended the trial of an Irishman, an ex-Nereide who had entered the French service at Mauritius. In the witness box he was able to identify the prisoner not by his appearance, but by his voice. The captain’s own appearance elicited the sympathy of the whole court: he was described as being ‘shattered with wounds, his head and face mangled, deprived of one eye and nearly blind in the other’.
In June 1812, Napoleon invaded Russia, and when a couple of months later his forces threatened Riga (now in Latvia), Willoughby applied to the British admiral commanding the squadron assisting the Russians in the city’s defence (Thomas Byam Martin) to volunteer with his forces. Though politely turned down, he decided to travel to Riga and offer his services to the Tsar to serve with the Russian army. On 26 September he was with Count Fabian Steinheil’s army of fifteen thousand men near Polotsk in what is now Belarus, when it was surprised by the French and put to flight. Willoughby and his Cossack attendant were captured because they had dismounted their horses to allow two wounded Russian soldiers to ride. Now he was a prisoner of the French, as their army retreated westwards during the onset of winter. Fortunately, a kindly Dutch officer provided him from enough funds to secure some comforts during the bitter trek though Minsk, Vilna and Grodno, but by the time Willoughby reached Königsberg he was so feverish that he had to take to a bed for two months. At the end of the year reports reached London that he had been murdered in cold blood on Napoleon’s order, but within a month it was announced that he was safe at Königsberg. Even so, despite the Tsar requesting his release, Napoleon refused an exchange, and after reaching France he was closely imprisoned for nine months at the Château de Bouillon in Belgium. The advance of the allied armies in early 1814 saw him transferred to Peronne near Amiens; he is said to have then managed to escape captivity, although how he did so is unclear.
After his return to England, on 4 January 1815 he was nominated a Companion of the Bath (C.B. the third highest grade of that order), and he visited the continent that summer after the Battle of Waterloo. He returned to active duty on 10 September 1818 when he was appointed to command the frigate Tribune 36 at Chatham, sailing for Ireland in December. During February 1820 his ship fitted out at Plymouth for the purpose of taking Rear-Admiral William Fahie out to the Leeward Islands station during the spring. Remaining in the West Indies, in the summer of 1821 the Tribune visited Portobello and Cartagena, returning to Jamaica with 45 people who had fallen into the hands of forces rebelling against the Spanish. On arrival she had to send 40 men off the ship to hospital, having suffered a great deal of sickness and some deaths during her mission. By June 1822 she was back in home waters paying off at Chatham in July. Willoughby did not see any further service at sea. He remained unmarried, which was understandable in view of his distressing disfigurements – in addition to a black patch over an empty eye socket, part of his jaw was shot away making him unable to fully open his mouth.
On 30 June 1827 he was knighted by the King on the insistence of the Duke of Clarence, who then (briefly) held the title of Lord High Admiral. Indeed, Clarence was so intent on Willoughby becoming Sir Nesbit that after he became king (apparently forgetting his brother’s earlier award) he knighted Willoughby again on 21 August 1832, investing him with the honour of a K.C.H. (the Hanoverian order of Knighthood). From November 1841 he was the naval aide-de-camp to Queen Victoria, and he was promoted a rear-admiral on 28 April 1847.
Rear-Admiral Sir Nesbit Josiah Willoughby died at his house in Montagu Street, Portman Square, after a two-week illness on 19 May 1849, aged 71.
The seamen knew him as ‘the Immortal’ and he loved the thrill of danger. On one occasion when attempting to board a well-armed privateer, he encouraged his men by throwing his hat over the quarter onto her deck and offering a gallon of rum to the first man who could retrieve it! He was renowned for being bull-headed, stubborn, often stupidly over-confident, harsh, cruel, and awkward to serve. He also was insanely brave, able (especially in combined operations), resourceful and inspiring. Somewhat curiously for one of his violent character, he published a work in 1839 entitled ‘Extracts from Holy Writ and various Authors, intended as Helps to Meditation and Prayer, principally for Soldiers and Seamen.’ Perhaps at the end of a violent life, he had come to understand the consolations of religion.