Thomas Revell Shivers

1751-1827

Shivers was commissioned lieutenant on 9 May 1777 and in June was appointed to the recently purchased schooner Quebec on the Newfoundland station. Later in 1778 he commanded the schooner Penguin 10, which vessel was wrecked on 3 November during a gale in the Bay of Bulls, Newfoundland, although he was acquitted of any blame for the loss at his subsequent court martial.

He was promoted commander on 24 January 1782, and he commissioned the captured French sloop Espion 16 which returned from the Leeward Islands in the spring of 1783.

In the summer of 1789 Shivers joined the Orestes 18 at Portsmouth, and during the Spanish Armament in 1790 he left Torbay to join the Grand Fleet in August. He was subsequently one of many officers who were posted captain, with seniority from 21 September.

In January 1793 he recommissioned the Ariadne 20, taking a convoy out to Quebec and then sailing for the Mediterranean in May where he was present at the evacuation of Toulon after Vice-Admiral Lord Hood had initially occupied the French port in August. After leaving the Ariadne in January 1794 he became the flag captain to Rear-Admiral Robert Linzee in the Mediterranean during the early summer aboard the Alcide 74, which ship returned to England with Vice-Admiral Phillips Cosby s convoy in the autumn.

Shivers commissioned the Dutch prize Zealand 64 at Plymouth in 1797, and after exchanging with Captain Thomas Parr he commanded the Standard 64 from September to December in home waters. His final command was the Defiance 74, on which he was employed from the end of February 1799 until Christmas 1800, participating in the pursuit of the Brest fleet which broke out on 25 April before returning to Plymouth and spending some time with the Channel fleet in 1800.

He became a rear-admiral on 28 April 1808, a vice-admiral on 12 August 1812, and an admiral on 27 May 1825.

Shivers died on 1 June 1827 at Wickham, Hampshire. His mother had died at Wickham five years earlier at the age of 94, and his widow died there in 1846.