Arthur Fleming Morrell

Arthur Fleming Morrell
Captain Arthur Fleming Morrell, RN (1788-1880)
Born	(1788-11-10)10 November 1788 Stoke Damerel, Devon, England
Died	13 September 1880(1880-09-13) (aged 91) Erith, Dartford, Kent, England
Allegiance	Great Britain, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland
Service/branch	Royal Navy
Years of service	1800-1856
Rank	Captain
Commands held	HMS Espoir HMS Tortoise HMS Hydra
Awards	Arctic Medal (1818-1855)

Arthur Fleming Morrell (10 November 1788 – 13 September 1880) was British officer of the Royal Navy, an explorer, and a colonial administrator of Ascension Island, who saw service spanning the end of the Napoleonic era and well into the Victorian era.

Arthur Morrell was born in 1788 in Stoke Damerel, Devon, the second son of a Royal Navy lieutenant, John Morrell. His father had been an able seaman, rising to the warrant officer's rank of gunner by the time his sons entered the Royal Navy.

Morrell's brother was John Arthur Morrell, who became a commander and served aboard HMS Eagle during an 1806 attack on Naples, then held by Napoleon's brother, Joseph Bonaparte.

Morrell joined the Royal Navy at the age of about twelve or thirteen as a first class volunteer. He served first on HMS Doris, a 38-gun fifth rate ship in the Channel fleet that took several French ships as prizes during the years Morrell served on her.

He then moved to the Caribbean on board HMS Pique, and was by now a Master's mate. It was aboard Pique, a captured French ship formerly named Pallas, that he would take part in the 1803 blockade of Saint-Domingue, serving off Cape Francois, at what is now Haiti. A boat from the Pique, commanded by Lieutenant Nesbit Josiah Willoughby, was dispatched to capture the French frigate Clorinde as she fled the rebellious Haitians led by Jean-Jacques Dessalines. Morrell was part of the crew that brought Clorinde under a British flag to Jamaica.