Sir Thomas Hoar Bertie (1758-1825)
Despite suffering ill health in the disparate climes of the West Indies and the Baltic, Bertie saw duty in the American and French wars and proved his fighting qualities at the Battle of Copenhagen.
He was born Thomas Hoar on 3 July 1758 at Stockton-on-Tees, County Durham, the fourth son of George Hoar of Durham who later served as the keeper of the Crown Jewels at the Tower of London, and of his wife, Frances Sleigh.
Though entered to the books of the yacht William and Mary in March 1771, for the next two years Hoar was actually ashore, as he was educated in Stockton and at Christ’s Hospital in London. In November 1773 at the age of 15, he finally went to sea aboard the Seahorse 24, Captain George Farmer, becoming a messmate of both Horatio Nelson and Thomas Troubridge, and serving in the East Indies. During June 1777 he moved to the Salisbury 50, Captain George Walters, the flagship of the commander-in-chief, Commodore Sir Edward Hughes, and he returned to England with that officer in May 1778.
On 21 May 1778, with war against France imminent, he was commissioned lieutenant of Captain Joshua Rowley’s Monarch 74, fighting at the Battle of Ushant on 27 July. Hoare moved with Rowley to the Suffolk 74 in December; when his patron was promoted to rear-admiral three months later Captain Hugh Cloberry Christian came aboard as the flag-captain. Hoar was present at the Battle of Grenada on 6 July 1779 and led a successful boat action off Martinique which saw two enemy vessels destroyed. In March 1780 he transferred to the Conqueror 74, (Rowley’s new flagship) serving as first lieutenant under Captain Thomas Watson. Hoar participated in Admiral Sir George Rodney’s actions with the French including the Battle of Martinique on on 17 April and skirmishes from 15 to 21 May, and then served as flag-lieutenant to Rear-Admiral Rowley at Jamaica.
On 10 August 1782 Rowley promoted the 24-year-old Hoar to be commander of the ex-French privateer Duc d’Estissac 18. He commanded her in the West Indies and Americas until the end of the American Revolutionary War, paying the vessel off on his return to England in August 1783.
Hoar remained unemployed through the years of peace. On 20 May 1788 at St. Marylebone, London he married Catherine Dorothy, the eldest daughter and co-heiress of the late Hon. Peregrine Bertie of Low Leyton, Essex, and adopted the surname Bertie as required under the terms of his father-in-law’s will. At about the same time his brother Ralph Hoar married Catherine’s sister, Elizabeth Bertie. In the same year Bertie (as he was now called) conducted experiments with lifebuoys at Spithead. On 22 November 1790 at the end of the Spanish Armament the 32-year-old Bertie was posted captain (along with many other officers), and he was appointed to the newly built frigate Leda 36 for purposes of rank only.
Bertie was not employed in the first years of the French Revolutionary War, but seems to have sought a post, to the extent that in March 1795 he replied (unsuccessfully) to an Admiralty advertisement for a regulating captain, a low-status job overseeing the recruitment of sailors. However, in mid-September he was appointed to command the troop ship Hindostan 54, but experienced considerable difficulty obtaining both the required number of lieutenants, and sufficient trained seamen to safely man the ship. By the end of November, the ship had enough crew to escort a dozen transports and other men-of-war from Portsmouth to Cork as part of Rear-Admiral Hugh Cloberry Christians force for a Leeward Islands campaign. During a gale at that port on 28 January 1796 a defective mizzen mast caused the Hindostan to collide with and completely dismast the frigate Santa Margarita 36, Captain Thomas Byam Martin. Two weeks later the ship (armed en-flute) departed Ireland under the overall orders of Captain George Bowen of the Canada 74 with five transports carrying troops destined for an attack on San Domingo. Bertie’s ship carried a number of troops as well as Brigadier-General John Whitelock and his suite. The next day the Hindostan parted company with the transports in a fog, and she endured a rough solo passage out to Jamaica. In July Bertie sought and received permission to return to England to recover his health; the doctors who examined him reported he had ‘a nervous affectation of the left side’. A bout of yellow fever at Port-au-Prince delayed his return until October, when he came home aboard an American vessel.
In January 1797, his health now having recovered thanks to a session at Bath, he was appointed to the Ruby 64. However, it seems unlikely that he ever took her to sea, for in March he was appointed to the recently seized Dutch vessel Braakel 54 at Plymouth. He was also not long aboard this ship; she escorted two transports around to the Nore in August and briefly served as the guardship at that station. Late in August he removed to the Ardent 64, a slow but comfortable vessel (recently built at Northfleet) that had lost her commander, Captain Richard Rundle Burges, at the Battle of Camperdown earlier that month. At the end of November, she was taken into Chatham and docked for repairs that lasted until the end of March 1798. Back at sea in April, the Ardent sailed to Yarmouth, but she was driven aground on Hamond’s Knowl in a gale on 14 May. Fears that she would be lost proved happily unfounded, but she remained stuck for five and a half hours and had to launch her provisions and stores overboard to get off. At the end of the month she sailed for Chatham to have her damage repaired, and it was not until 29 July that she made her way back down the Thames to resume her duties.
The Ardent spent three years on the exacting North Sea station operating out of Yarmouth. This involved frequent cruises off the Texel, in the course of which she participated in the invasion of the Netherlands beginning in August 1799, and in the visit of Vice-Admiral Archibald Dickson’s squadron to Denmark in August-September 1800. From 28 February to 12 March 1801, she served as the flagship of Admiral Sir Hyde Parker until he moved to the London 98, Captain Robert Waller Otway. Sailing with the expedition to the Baltic to confront the Armed Neutrality, Bertie and the Ardent fought fiercely at the Battle of Copenhagen on 2 April: during the battle the ship fought five different Danish ships, and at the end of the conflict his officers accepted the surrender of several of the enemy vessels. The Ardent suffered casualties of thirty men killed and sixty-four wounded, and was hit by 78 Danish shot, causing considerable damage to the deck guns, masts and rigging. The day after the battle, Bertie was visited by Vice-Admiral Lord Nelson, who praised the part the Ardent had played in the battle.
A week later he was appointed to the Bellona 74 in place of Captain Sir Thomas Boulden Thompson who had lost a leg in the battle, and his new command remained in the Baltic until July. Later in that month she returned home, sailing with five other 74’s around the north of Scotland to reach Cork on 26 July and Portsmouth on 4 August. She was then dispatched in a squadron under the orders of Commodore Charles Tyler to reinforce Rear-Admiral Sir James Saumarez off Cadiz. Not long after arriving on that station she briefly visited Gibraltar to fish (repair) her mainmast. In early 1802 Tyler’s squadron of four sail of the line sailed to reinforce Rear-Admiral Sir John Duckworth in the West Indies, reaching Jamaica on 15 February, but with the French Revolutionary War coming to an end in March, Bertie received orders to take the whole of the West Indies squadron (the Bellona and seven other ships of the line) back to England, arriving on 24 June. His ship was paid off in the following month.
Though hostilities with France resumed in May 1803, Bertie remained unemployed until November when took command of the Courageux 74, (the flagship of Rear-Admiral James Richard Dacres). Sailing for the West Indies from Spithead with a convoy of 133 ships on 2 January 1804, poor weather caused her (with forty of her charges) to limp back to Plymouth in a leaky condition on 3 February, having sprung her foremast and jettisoned her upper deck guns. A long refit was now necessary, and with family matters requiring Bertie’s attention, he resigned the command in March to Captain Charles Boyles. However, he solicited another post from the Admiralty several times over the next eighteen months.
During the winter of 1805-6 Bertie replaced the promoted Hon. Michael de Courcy in command of the twenty-year-old St George 98 for duties in the Channel. On 27 January 1806 she left Plymouth with Rear-Admiral Sir Richard Strachan’s squadron to search for the French squadrons of Vice-Admiral Leissègues and Rear-Admiral Willaumez, which had broken out of Brest. Whilst escorting the West Indies convoy down the Channel, the irascible Strachan threatened to fire on the St George for some perceived irregularities, and after cruising off Madeira in mid-March the unsuccessful squadron returned to Plymouth on in early May.
The St George did not sail with Strachan on his second cruise in pursuit of the French squadrons but instead joined the Channel Fleet, becoming part of the force off Rochefort in August 1806. After six weeks at Portsmouth over December and January 1807, in mid-July she arrived at Plymouth for a refit where she remained until 8 September, giving Bertie the chance to take some leave. After more blockade duty off Ushant, in early February 1808 his ship went to Plymouth for another refit before dropping down to Cawsand Bay on 2 April, but with his promotion to rear-admiral coming on 28 April, Bertie then left the command.
He did not long remain unemployed as a flag officer. In July 1808 he left London for Yarmouth to take passage out to the Baltic aboard the sloop Calypso 16, Commander Mathew Bradby, to take on the duty of a subordinate admiral to Rear-Admiral Sir James Saumarez. The admiral stationed him in the Sound to control the passage between Denmark and Sweden; he flew his flag briefly on both the Orion 74, Captain Sir Archibald Dickson, and the Vanguard 74, Captain Thomas Baker, but by the winter he was aboard the Dictator 64, Captain Donald Campbell. He returned to Yarmouth in January 1809 and was presented to Queen Charlotte in London shortly afterwards. After two months at home, he returned to the Baltic in March 1809 with his flag aboard the Stately 64, Captain James Whitley Deans Dundas, but this was largely a humdrum period of little activity, with the most noteworthy event being an elegant ball and supper which he held for Swedish guests aboard the Dictator off Helsingborg in August. By 24 Christmas Eve he was back at Yarmouth, and as his constitution had struggled with the bitter climate and the resulting deterioration of his health, he struck his flag for the last time on 19 February 1810.
During his retirement Bertie spent time both at the Polygon in Southampton, and at Bath. In June 1813 he was knighted by the Prince Regent and given permission to wear the insignia of a Knight Commander of the Royal Swedish Order of the Sword. Promoted vice-admiral on 4 December, he was further advanced to the rank of admiral on 27 May 1825.
Described as a ‘native of Hampshire’ Admiral Bertie died at Twyford Lodge near Winchester (the residence of his brother George Hoar), on 13 June, aged 66, and was buried in St. Mary’s Churchyard, Twyford. He had no children; his wife Catherine had died two years earlier.
A protégé of Lord Mulgrave, Bertie evidently had a technical bent, for in addition to his assistance in the development of lifebuoys he also made recommendations for improving the performance of the 42-pounder carronade in the late 1790’s. He displayed his humanity at Copenhagen, making considerable efforts to save drowning Danish sailors, and returning the swords surrendered by their officers in recognition of the enemy’s bravery.