With a Favouring Wind: The Story of the Rowley Admirals

434 pages

Richard Channon

Stoke By Nayland

In July 1777 four Rowley males gathered on the quarterdeck of HMS Monarch (60 guns).   They were Joshua (43), the captain, and squire of Tendring Hall estate, Stoke by Nayland, in Suffolk; his sons Bartholomew (12) and Charles (6); and his nephew Josias (11). All four became admirals, as had been William, their father and grandfather. Between all five they achieved three baronetcies, three knighthoods, two Lordships of the Admiralty, and nine Commands-in-Chief. It may be wondered therefore why they are so little known:  the most likely answer must be that, despite all of them having fought in notable actions, none of them had command of a fleet or a major squadron on such an occasion. Richard Rowley, descendant of Charles, has sought to revive the memory of his family, basing his work on research by Dr Peter Le Fevre and with the help of Ben Jeapes.

William joined the Royal Navy in 1704 at the age of 14, and rose via C in C Mediterranean in 1744 to succeed Anson as Admiral of the Fleet in 1762. He had bought Tendring Hall in 1750, and died in 1768 worth £160,000: for comparison, HMS Victory was built at that time for £65,000. In the indecisive action off Toulon in February 1744 he had been described as “continuing the fight with great obstinacy and judgment”.

Joshua first went to sea with his father in HMS Barfleur in 1741 at the age of seven. He was promoted to captain in 1753 and was captain of HMS Montague at the Battle of Quiberon Bay in November 1759. He was promoted to Rear Admiral in 1779, and, as noted by A T Mahan, his action to support ships cut off from the line of battle off Grenada in July 1779 “was an act almost identical with that which won Nelson renown at Cape St.Vincent” . He became C in C Jamaica in 1781, but on return to Britain in 1784 his career was effectively over, and he devoted himself instead to building a new Tendring Hall to designs by John Soane, the architect’s first commission outside London. He was awarded a baronetcy in 1786 and died in 1790.

At this point the author has a difficulty. To describe an individual’s life is straightforward:  to deal with three contemporaries involves either writing of them one-by-one or taking them together chronologically: he has opted for the latter, but your reviewer will summarise their careers one-by-one.

Bartholomew was clearly exceptionally bright – he was captain of HMS Resource (28) at the age of 17! As captain of HMS Cumberland in 1797 his log records the first use of “Splice the mainbrace” as a special issue of rum following exceptional exertions, or for a celebration. He was promoted to Rear Admiral at 35, and from 1801 moved through three Commands-in-Chief, at The Nore, in the Downs, and in Jamaica, where he died of yellow fever in October 1811.

Josias’ career stuttered to begin with, and he was not promoted to captain until he was 30. As captain of HMS Imperieuse in 1800 he put his name on the map by being the first to find and fix Rowley Shoals, 160 miles west of Broome, in Western Australia. In 1808 he found himself at the Cape as senior officer of a squadron of 11 ships, and confronting the problem of four powerful French frigates based in Mauritius and Reunion, which menaced the East India convoys whose carriage of Bengali saltpetre to Britain was a strategic imperative. Reunion was neutralised in 1809 and surrendered in 1810, while Josias had been given valuable intelligence by Matthew Flinders after his release from imprisonment in Mauritius. Following the disastrous defeat at Grand Port in August 1810 (brought about by British hubris, and the only naval battle commemorated on the Arc de Triomphe), he managed to retrieve the situation and thus made possible the capture of Mauritius in December 1810. He was awarded a baronetcy in 1813, promoted to Rear Admiral in 1814 and knighted in 1815. His career ended as C in C Mediterranean in 1837. It was said of him that “the officers and men under his command would have engaged at his bidding in actions of the most desperate character. They loved him”.

Charles, “a tall, rather magnificent gentleman and a fine sea commander”, had his first command in 1795. For nine years he was captain of HMS Eagle (74), from 1811 to 1814 in the Adriatic where his successes, which included the capture from the French of Trieste and Fiume (Rijeka), earned him a knighthood and the Austrian Order of Maria Theresa. In 1836 he received a baronetcy, and in 1843 he became C in C Portsmouth. By September 1845 ill-health drove him to offer his resignation, and he died shortly afterwards.

It will be appreciated that to sum up the incidents of five lives in the 400 pages of a book, means it is necessarily very sparse in detail. Besides the narrative, the book includes a family tree, a very useful chronology, appendices on Royal Navy ranks and on ships’ rates, and a glossary of naval terms, with a list of supporting documents and an index. The illustrations include portraits of all but Bartholomew:  that of Josias is unusual in that he is wearing that aberration of William IV, red facings on his naval uniform. The recently discovered watercolour of HMS Eagle in the Adriatic by William Pocock, son of Nicholas Pocock, provides a striking dust cover. One of the book’s features is how it hints at the club-like atmosphere of the officer corps, whereby they all knew each other and so often married each other’s sisters or daughters. It provides, from the personal experiences of these five men, a fascinating historical and social insight into the operations of the Georgian navy over a century and a half and is highly recommended.