William Albany Otway (1755-1815)
An officer regarded as a safe pair of hands, it was Otway’s fate to hold unspectacular secondary posts through much of his career. His organisational skills were evident in his roles both as a naval commissioner and in extracting the exhausted British forces from the disastrous Walcheren Campaign. His later years were blighted by ill-health, and he died at the relatively early age of 60.
The son of apothecary George Otway and his wife, Dorothy Mound, he was born on 26 July 1755 and was christened in St. Martin-in-the-Fields, Westminster. His family had originated from the Yorkshire / Westmorland border but were now established in London.
Otway entered the navy as a 10-year-old boy in 1765 aboard the Africa 64, Captain Hon. John Leveson-Gower, seeing service in the West Indies. He transferred to the Dreadnought 60, Captain Thomas Lee, (flying the flag of Rear-Admiral Sir William Burnaby) at Jamaica, prior to returning home in December 1766. During 1770 he went out to the Mediterranean aboard the Niger 32, Captain Francis Banks, and two years later sailed for the East Indies aboard the Prudent 64, Captain John Clarke Searle. There on 25 August 1773, the 18-year-old Otway was commissioned lieutenant of the Dolphin 24, Captain Gideon Johnstone.
In August 1777, with the American Revolutionary War intensifying, Otway, then serving as the second lieutenant of the frigate Lark 32 (Captain Richard Smith) went ashore to hunt near the Potomac River in Virginia. He was unfortunate enough to be captured by American forces, but was able to return to his ship by the end of the following month. During the defence of Rhode Island in August 1778, the Lark was destroyed to prevent her capture by the French; now shipless, Lieutenant Otway commanded a battery ashore on Goat’s Island. Upon returning to England, he was appointed first lieutenant of the Triumph 74, Captain Philip Affleck, serving in the Channel Fleet and later in the Leeward Islands. There he participated in the skirmishes with the French fleet during May 1780, and in the capture of the Dutch island of St. Eustatius on 3 February 1781.
At the end of March 1781 while still at St. Eustatius, the 25-year-old Otway was promoted commander into the bomb Vesuvius 8 by Admiral Sir George Rodney. His new command left St. Kitts with a huge convoy on 30 April and arrived at Portsmouth on 25 June. She then joined a convoy bound for the Downs, prior to a long period in dock where she was refitted and coppered. Sailing around to Spithead in January 1782, she appears to have remained under-employed at the anchorage for the next eight months. In September Otway was appointed to the cutter Barracouta 14, which completed fitting and coppering at Sheerness on 11 October, but it seems unlikely that he ever took her to sea.
December saw Otway appointed to the newly commissioned brig sloop Kingfisher 18 (often spelt King’s Fisher). After some months in home waters, she sailed for the Mediterranean station, calling at Gibraltar on 8 August 1783 after a 14-day passage. By now the country was at peace, so his vessel’s varied duties included looking into Algiers in April 1784, visiting Lisbon in November, delivering dispatches to the British consul at Algiers January 1785, entering Malaga in July, and obtaining livestock from Tetuan in December. On 12 May 1786 the Kingfisher arrived at Portsmouth from Gibraltar, and she was paid off at Deptford in October.
During February 1787 he commissioned the new sloop Scorpion 16, which though ready to sail in April, remained at Spithead until the end of September, when she was ordered to cruise in the Channel to meet the homeward-bound trade. This proved to be but a short commission, for on 1 December 1787 Otway was one of fifteen officers who were posted captain at the end of the Dutch Armament. He was appointed for purposes of rank only to the Leda 36, a frigate completed at the end of the American Revolutionary War but never previously commissioned.
On 24 November 1788 at St. Andrews, he married Hannah Burdon of Hartford Bridge, Northumberland. The couple were to have six children, of whom just three daughters were alive in 1810. A year after Otway’s death in 1815, his daughter Priscilla was to marry Captain Samuel Hood Inglefield.
In January 1789 Otway was appointed to the frigate Pegasus 28, which was fitting out at Plymouth for the Newfoundland station, but he did not take her to sea, and two months later he transferred to the Centurion 50 at Chatham. Rear-Admiral Phillip Affleck, the commander-in-chief designate for Jamaica, soon came aboard and the ship moved to Spithead from where she sailed for the West Indies, reaching her the station in early July. While aboard the Centurion, Otway complied several hundred pages of detailed sailing directions for the ports he visited in the Caribbean. He remained on the Centurion until the summer of 1792 when she came home to Portsmouth after a passage of 44 days from Jamaica. He paid the ship off at Chatham on 27 July.
In December 1792 our man was appointed to the Boyne 98; on 28 February 1793 (shortly after the start of the French Revolutionary War) the ship left the Hamoaze at Plymouth to go around to Portsmouth. There she was to become Rear-Admiral Affleck’s flagship, destined for the Mediterranean Fleet but in the event Affleck joined the Board of Admiralty. Instead, the Boyne sailed under the orders of Rear-Admiral John Gell, escorting an East India convoy out to Cape Finisterre. Unfortunately for her crew, she was away with the convoy when Gell’s squadron captured the richly laden French privateer General Dumourier and her prize, the Spanish register ship St. Jago on 14 April. Despite a subsequent appeal, Otway and his men thus missed out on the huge sum of prize money eventually awarded to the captors. On 1 June the Boyne captured the newly built St. Malo privateer Guidelon 20 in the Channel, followed by a short stay in Portsmouth Harbour. Otway gave up command of the Boyne on 4 November, when she became the flagship of Vice-Admiral Sir John Jervis, who had selected Captain George Grey as flag-captain for his expedition to the West Indies.
Taking over command of the Powerful 74 in January 1794, Otway was part of a squadron from Plymouth commanded by Commodore Thomas Pasley that made a fruitless search for a French force of six frigates that had reportedly been seen off Devon. Later that month the Powerful was ordered out to Jamaica – while on passage she retook the Liverpool-based privateer George 24 about 120 miles north of Cape Finisterre. Unfortunately, seven of the French prize crew and a seaman from the Powerful drowned when their boat sank while transferring the men between ships in blustery conditions. The short of tour duty in the West Indies proved to be most unhappy, with Otway’s ship losing scores of men (including almost all of his officers) to yellow fever. When the Powerful returned home with a convoy at the end of July, Otway was awarded a piece of plate from the West India merchants for its safe return. This professional accolade would have been tinged with private sorrow when he learned that his seven-month-old daughter had died in March. Meanwhile, the Powerful was paid off at Portsmouth on 22 August.
Briefly in command of the frigate Flora 36 whilst she was refitting at Portsmouth, he did not take her to sea, and instead he accepted a civil role that involved the inspection and valuing of the French prizes and their stores which had been brought back from the occupation of Toulon in 1793. In September 1795 he became one of five commissioners of the newly appointed Transport Board, and a month later it was reported that he had been deputed by the government to confer with two French commissioners at Canterbury. After retaining the post on the Transport Board for some eight years, in June 1803 he became the commissioner of the dockyard at Gibraltar. With the Napoleonic War having just begun, Otway sailed in the following month aboard the Prevoyante 18 to take up his new post. Otway returned home in early November 1805 on the Prince of Wales 98 (with Vice-Admiral Sir Robert Calder), to take a post on the Board of Naval Inquiry looking into the financial affairs of the service.
Returning to active service in the late summer of 1806, Otway commanded the Glory 98, seeing duty with the Channel Fleet off the Brest before going out to Cadiz in January 1807. He was advanced to the rank of rear-admiral on 2 October; returning home with the Mediterranean convoy, the Glory anchored at Portsmouth in late November after a 24-day passage from Cadiz.
Retaining the Glory, but now as his flagship with Captain Donald M’Leod as flag captain, in early December 1807 Otway took command of a squadron of six sail of the line off St. Helens. At the time these vessels were not provisioned for more than a week at sea, but they were posted off the Isle of Wight in case the Russian warships in the Tagus made a dash up the Channel for home. He struck his flag just before Christmas when the squadron was disbanded, and in January 1808 took passage out to the Tagus aboard the Lively 38, Captain George M’Kinley. There he served as second-in-command to Vice-Admiral Sir Charles Cotton with his flag aboard the Ganges 74, Captain Peter Halkett, and then the Barfleur 98 Captain M’Leod.
Suffering from ill health, in June 1808 Otway was appointed to a less exacting role as the second-in- command at Portsmouth to Admiral George Montagu. He returned from the Tagus in mid-July aboard the frigate Gloire 38, Captain James Carthew, and a month later temporarily assumed the chief command when Admiral Montagu took a month’s leave, shifting his flag into the Royal William 84, Captain Hon. Courtenay Boyle. Following Montagu’s return at the end of September, he transferred to the Gladiator, a guardship under Lieutenant John Price.
On 23 June 1809 Otway was ordered express to London to receive urgent orders to take command of twelve sail of the line as part of the ambitious Walcheren Expedition. His special responsibility was the transport and landing of Major-General Sir Eyre Coote’s division of seventeen thousand troops on the coast of Holland. He hoisted his flag aboard the Monarch 74, Captain Richard Lee, at Portsmouth and his force departed from the Downs for the Scheldt at the end of July. There Otway served as second-in-command to Rear-Admiral Sir Richard Strachan, who left him in command when he returned to England on 21 August. Transferring to the Caesar 80, Captain Charles Richardson, Otway directed the unsuccessful expedition’s final withdrawal from Flushing in December, after demolishing the port and works. Having brought his ships into the Downs on 28 December, he returned to Portsmouth and rehoisted his flag aboard the Gladiator.
In January 1810 he attended a levee with the King, and in May it was announced that he was to be employed as the commander-in-chief at Sheerness with his flag aboard the Thisbe 38, Commander William Rogers. This proved to be a short tenure, for in August he was appointed commander-in-chief at Leith, taking passage for Scotland at the end of the month aboard the Nymphe 36, Captain Edward Sneyd Clay. At Leith (where he flew his flag aboard the Adamant 50, Captain Matthew Buckle) his family were able to live with him, and he mixed with the upper levels of Scottish society in Edinburgh. He returned briefly to Portsmouth in June 1812 to sit on the court martial of Captain Sir James Wood concerning that officer’s his failure to tackle a French squadron near Ushant. Returning to Leith, Otway transferred with Captain Buckle to the Latona 38 in September 1813; two months later he resigned the command of the station and came ashore for the last time.
Otway had been promoted to vice-admiral on 1 August 1811. He died suddenly at the age of 60 at Ryde on the Isle of Wight on 30 July 1815, having suffered several years of ill-health as a result of contracting Walcheren Fever during 1809.
He was apparently a modest man with a dry sense of humour — when he was accidentally asked to provide an account of his own death and burial, he calmly responded: ‘all in good time’.