Charles Cornewall
| Charles Cornewall | |
|---|---|
| Born | 1669 Eye, Herefordshire |
| Died | 7 October 1718 (aged 49) Lisbon |
| Buried at | Westminster Abbey |
| Allegiance |
 Kingdom of England Kingdom of Great Britain
|
| Service/branch |
 Royal Navy (1683–1707) Royal Navy (1707–1718) |
| Years of service | 1683–1718 |
| Rank | Vice Admiral |
| Commands held |
HMS Portsmouth HMS Adventure HMS Plymouth HMS Kent HMS Shrewsbury HMS Exeter HMS Orford HMS Dreadnought |
| Battles/wars |
Nine Years' War War of the Spanish Succession War of the Quadruple Alliance |
Vice Admiral Charles Cornewall or Cornwall (1669 – 7 October 1718) was an officer in the British Royal Navy.
He was born in 1669, eldest of the eleven children of Robert Cornewall and Edith Cornwallis, and was baptised at Eye, Herefordshire on 5 August 1669.
He joined the navy in 1683 and was given his first command, the Sloop HMS Portsmouth, on 19 September 1692. The following year he was given command of the 44-gun HMS Adventure and sailed under the command of Admiral Edward Russell to the Mediterranean, where he would remain until 1696.
On 27 January 1695, Adventure was one of a squadron of six frigates under the command of Commodore James Killegrew aboard HMS Plymouth. The flotilla was spotted by two French warships, the 60-gun Content and the 52-gun Trident, who closed on them believing them to be merchant ships. They retreated on discovering their mistake and were pursued by the British ships, the ensuing firefight lasting through the night and into the next morning before the French ships were compelled to surrender. Killigrew was killed in the action, and Cornewall was appointed to command the Plymouth in his place.
He was given command of HMS Kent in 1697, but left the navy after the Treaty of Ryswick. In 1701 he stood for parliament in Weobley against his cousin Henry Cornewall, but was defeated having gained just four votes. Returning to sea in March that year, he was given command of HMS Shrewsbury but had to resign a few months later due to the sudden death of his father whose concerns, he wrote on 25 Sept. 1701, "are like to prove more troublesome and tedious than I expected, though when settled may prove of very considerable advantage to my children." These affairs having been settled, he was appointed to command HMS Exeter but rejected it when it became clear that he would effectively be a second captain under John Leake in Newfoundland, protesting that "their sending a private captain to command … me in my own ship [was] a modest way of terming me a blockhead."
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