Sir Richard Grindall (1751-1820)

This officer’s career was bracketed by two of the most famous events in the history of the Royal Navy: Captain Cook’s second voyage, and the Battle of Trafalgar. Grindall was praised for his bold conduct at the Battle of Groix in 1795, but his subsequent career was blighted by wounds suffered in that engagement, and his dull-sailing command fought poorly at the Battle of Trafalgar, leading to some unfair personal criticism.

Born in Holborn on 9 April 1751 and baptised in London, he was the second of six sons of Rivers Grindall, a brewer, and his wife Martha. His uncle, also Richard Grindall, was an eminent surgeon, member of the Royal Society, and surgeon to the Prince of Wales.

Young Richard joined the Navy in early 1763 aboard the small frigate Tartar 24, Captain Hon. Henry St. John. When this vessel was paid off in April following the end of the Seven Years War, he followed St. John to the Garland 24, sailing to Nova Scotia in July. The Garland remained based at Halifax on the North American station until she was paid off in February 1768. Grindall then served for a short period aboard the Pearl 32, Captain John Elphinstone, but although he passed his examination for lieutenant in November 1770, (when he had almost reached the required age of 20), he did not have sufficient influence to be awarded a commission.

On 27 March 1772 he married a woman named Latitiah London in Old Church, St. Pancras. Although legend has it that he sailed the same day aboard the Resolution on Captain James Cook’s second voyage of exploration to the Southern Ocean, that expedition did not in fact leave England until 13 July. We can only imagine the experiences that the young man encountered during this epic three-year circumnavigation of the globe. The Resolution returned to England on 29 July 1775, and Grindall was finally commissioned lieutenant on 29 November 1776 at the relatively advanced age of 26.

The Battle of Groix – where Grindall received an incapacitating wound.

In 1777 he rejoined Captain Elphinstone aboard the Portsmouth guardship Egmont 74. In May 1778, with the French about to enter the American War of Independence, he took up a post aboard the Princess Royal 98, Captain William Blair. This vessel was the flagship of Vice-Admiral Hon. John Byron, whose fleet departed for North America on 9 June, sailing south to the Leeward Islands in December. He must have returned to England by early 1779, since in late May of that year (his first wife having died), he married Katherine Festing, the daughter of a clergyman.

Grindall returned to the Caribbean in January 1781 aboard the Barfleur 90, Captain John Inglefield, flying the flag of Rear-Admiral Sir Samuel Hood. He was a lieutenant aboard the Barfleur when Hood fought the French admiral de Grasse at the Battle of Fort Royal on 29 April. Hood promoted him commander into the sloop Saint Vincent 14 in December 1781. Grindall held this command for about two years, and must have performed satisfactorily, since on 13 March 1783 (still in the Leeward Islands) he was posted to be captain of the St. Eustatius 20. This was a Dutch prize, taken at the capture of the island of the same name, and Grindall’s one-month command was probably just a formality to enable him to be created a post-captain. The American Revolutionary War having drawn to a close, he left the St. Eustatius and went on half pay in April 1783.

In the peace that followed the American War Grindall appears to have taken up residence in Weymouth, and in August 1792 it was reported that he joined the King on his morning walk along the esplanade during the royal family’s annual holiday in the town.

On 15 January 1793 Grindall recommissioned the Thalia 36 at Portsmouth, and the inhabitants of Weymouth put up a bounty to encourage fifty local volunteers to join the frigate. After the usual delays to take on stores and complete the crew, she began her service in mid-February escorting coastal convoys around Britain. A fruitless four-week cruise in the Bay of Biscay followed in the spring, and in July she took the East India convoy out of St. Helens to a designated latitude before returning to Portsmouth in mid-October.

In January 1794 the Thalia brought home the Oporto convoy, followed by a short time in dock. In April the frigate escorted a convoy out to Portugal and the Mediterranean. During the summer she returned from the Mediterranean with a convoy in company with the Fox 32, Captain Thomas Drury, and the Hind 28, Captain Philip Durham. After a brief visit to the North Sea, the Thalia was attached to Vice-Admiral John MacBride’s squadron of the Channel Fleet, based at Plymouth. Still part of the Channel Fleet early in 1795, on 20 February Grindall’s command took the French brig Requin 12 near Cape Finisterre. Rather generously, the flag officers and captains of the fleet relinquished their share of the prize money for this capture so that the Thalias could benefit from the whole purse. Otherwise, the relatively small amount resulting from the capture would have been divided up among the thousands of men in the Channel Fleet. The frigate arrived back at Portsmouth with Rear-Admiral John Colpoys’ squadron in mid-April, and at the end of May was ordered out on a cruise under the orders of Vice-Admiral Hon. William Cornwallis.

In early June 1795 Grindall transferred at Spithead to the fast-sailing Irresistible 74, which he commanded at the Battle of Groix on 23 June. His ship was one of the first into the action, getting to grips with the French rear even though unsupported, and slowing the Alexandre 74 to such an extent that she was later captured. In addition to three men who lost their lives, the captain was one of fourteen wounded, although not dangerously. Even so, he was transferred to the hospital ship Charon, from which he was landed at Weymouth in July, receiving three cheers from the men of the Orion 74, Captain Sir James Saumarez, which had towed that vessel in. The damage to his arm, originally thought to be minor, turned out to be more serious, and he lost the use of the limb, even though it was not amputated. Proof of this handicap can be seen in the Science Museum, which holds the combination knife and fork he had made to allow him to deal with his food with one hand. When Nelson lost his arm a few years later, he had a similar implement made.

The Battle of Trafalgar in 1805

Returning to duty in an unexacting capacity, Grindall was in charge of the Carnatic 74 while she was refitting at Plymouth from November 1795 to the following March. By July 1796 he was in a more active post, commanding the Colossus 74 as part of a force sent out to meet the homeward-bound East Indies convoy. Thereafter employed with the Channel Fleet, in August the Colossus joined squadrons sent to cruise off Brest under Vice-Admiral John Colpoys and then Vice-Admiral Sir Alan Gardner. Unfortunately, while at sea Grindall’s wounds re-opened, and at the end of September amid concerns for his life he was sent home to Plymouth aboard the Aquilon 32, Captain William Cracraft. He briefly commanded the Russell 74 in the summer of 1797 before also leaving her due to ill health at the end of July (being replaced by Captain Henry Trollope), and in October he received a pension for his wounds. Remaining ashore, at the end of the year he attended the Service of Thanksgiving at St. Paul’s Cathedral for the naval victories.

In February 1799 Grindall was well enough to be appointed to the Ramillies 74, which put to sea from Plymouth at the end of April upon news that the Brest Fleet was out. During the summer she was off Rochefort with Rear-Admiral Hon. George Berkeley’s squadron before returning to Plymouth in mid -July. The Ramillies was then employed in the tedious blockade of Brest with the Channel Fleet, except for the brief period when she was detached under the orders of Captain Sir Edward Pellew in the expedition to Quiberon during June-August 1800. In November of that year, while at anchor the Ramillies parted her cables, and was driven out to sea from Torbay with not a sail aloft. Only a couple of days later was she was able to get back into the anchorage.

In January 1801 he transferred to the Formidable 90 in the Channel Fleet, with frequent visits to Plymouth and Torbay throughout the year. In December the ship was waiting to depart from Berehaven Bay in Ireland with a large force for the West Indies when a mutiny broke out aboard several vessels. Their crews were unhappy at being sent abroad when peace talks were underway to end a war that had lasted eight years. The Formidables did not take part in the mutiny, and they wrote to Grindall expressing their loyalty; he was a member of the court martial that tried sixteen men from the squadron at Portsmouth in early January 1802. The squadron then departed as planned for Jamaica, spending an uneventful spring and summer in the Caribbean. However, the return voyage from the West Indies took so long (eleven weeks) that the crew had to be reduced to quarter rations for the last three weeks of the passage. The Formidable was paid off at Plymouth at the end of September, and days later Grindall presided over a court martial on of the three mutineers from the Albanaise 14, whose crew had handed her over to the Spanish in November 1800.

In March 1803 he received the devastating news that his eldest son, Richard, had died whilst serving in the West Indies aboard the frigate Castor 32, Captain Richard Peacocke. Shortly afterwards war resumed with France, and on 4 April Grindall joined the Prince 98, which he recommissoned at Plymouth dockyard eight days later. Delays caused by the absence of riggers and a lack of crewmen meant that it was not until the first days of January 1804 that she warped down into Cawsand Bay. Even then she remained off Plymouth, and here a tragedy occurred at the end of the month when her pinnace, together with that of the Terrible 74, Captain Lord Paulet, capsized in a violent squall in sight of the Citadel, with the loss of two midshipmen and seventeen crew members. The Prince joined the Channel Fleet, serving on the Brest blockade for the rest of the year.

During a refit at Plymouth from 14 December 1804 until 10 February 1805 Daniel Oliver Guion acted as captain of the Prince, but Grindall resumed command before she sailed to rejoin the Channel Fleet in early March. After a return to Plymouth Dock in July, the ship was sent to reinforce Vice-Admiral Sir Robert Calder following the controversial Battle of Cape Finisterre, and then she became attached to Vice-Admiral Lord Nelson’s fleet off Cadiz. At the Battle of Trafalgar, although designated to be the second ship in Vice-Admiral Cuthbert Collingwood’s column, her poor sailing qualities caused the Prince to lag behind the other ships as they approached the waiting Franco-Spanish fleet. As a result, the ship was very slow coming into action and did not start firing her cannons until 4 p.m., when the battle was almost over. Nevertheless, she sent several devastating broadsides into the Spanish admiral Gravina’s flagship, Principe de Asturias 112, and contributed to the blaze that eventually caused the French Achille 74 to explode. After the battle the crew of the Prince (which alone among the British fleet, had no casualties) exerted themselves saving the lives of enemy sailors, including those from the blazing remnants of the Achille. The British ship took the Santisima Trinidad 136, the biggest battleship in the world, in tow, and when this vessel later sunk rescued some of her crew.

Some contemporary observers commented that the Prince had been late joining the battle because she had not been sailed effectively, and Captain Edward Rotheram went so far as to describe Grindall’s behaviour as ‘notoriously ill’, however, Vice-Admiral Collingwood clearly thought that the fault lay with the build-up of marine growth on the Prince’s hull, slowing her down. Grindall received several honours after the battle: the award of the Naval Gold Medal, (given to commanders of ships in successful battles); a 100-guinea sword from Lloyd’s Patriotic Fund; and presentation to the King in January 1807.

Grindall left the Prince on being advanced to rear admiral in a general promotion on 9 November 1805, but remained for some months with the fleet aboard Collingwood’s flagship. Though without an official post, he seems to have acted as the admiral’s companion, providing Collingwood with a willing ear to listen to his problems, which were far from ending at Trafalgar. Grindall returned home in the spring of 1806, and never held another naval post, spending the rest of his life on half-pay. His promotion to vice-admiral on 31 July 1810 was due to seniority, and like dozens of other officers he was created a KCB in January 1815, in recognition of his services in the preceding wars.

His retirement was spent at his home in Hampshire, presumably trying to help his young relatives get on in the Navy. An interesting painting in the National Maritime Museum shows him proudly presenting his wife Katherine and four sons to the onlooker. Three of the sons entered the naval service but died in the Napoleonic Wars. Richard Henry on the left (mentioned above) died of disease in the West Indies. Festing Horatio, who is standing to the left of his father wearing the uniform of a midshipman, was aboard the Victory with Nelson at Trafalgar and died a lieutenant in 1812. Young Edmund (holding his mother’s hand) was a midshipman at the time of his death in 1811. Two nephews not included in the painting (Benjamin Morton Festing who had been aboard the Prince at Trafalgar) and Robert Worgan George Festing, rose to high rank in the Royal Navy.

Vice-Admiral Sir Richard Grindall died at Wickham, Hampshire, on 23 May 1820, and he was buried in the local St. Nicholas Churchyard.