Charles Shipley

Major-General Sir Charles Shipley (18 February 1755 – 30 November 1815) was a senior officer in the British Army who was acting Governor of Grenada from 1813 to 1815.

He was born at Copt Hall, Luton, Bedfordshire, the son of a captain of cavalry, Richard Shipley. After entering the Royal Military Academy at Woolwich at the age of nine he received in 1771 a commission as ensign and practitioner engineer.

The following year he went to Minorca and in 1776 was promoted to be lieutenant and sub-engineer. He returned to England in 1778, and was stationed at Gravesend as engineer on the staff under Colonel Debbieg, the commanding Royal Engineer of the Chatham or Thames district. From 1780 to 1783 he served in St Lucia in the Leeward Islands, returning home to be stationed at Dover Castle

In 1788 he again went to the West Indies, stationed at Antigua, but was called home in 1792 to be tried by court-martial for disobedience to regulations for employing his own negroes in Antigua on government fortification work. The court sat at the Horse Guards, found him guilty, and sentenced him to be suspended from rank and pay for twelve months, at the same time stating that they fully recognised that Shipley's departure from regulations did not suggest any corrupt or interested motive.

In 1793 he was promoted captain and again posted to the West Indies, but was captured by the French corvette Perdrix within a few miles of Barbados. The prisoners were confined in hulks at Guadeloupe and suffered great hardship, but Shipley's wife was set free and eventually managed to secure her husband's freedom.

In 1795 Shipley was promoted to major in the army and in 1796 was appointed commanding Royal Engineer of the Windward and Leeward Islands. In 1797 he accompanied Sir Ralph Abercromby as commanding Royal Engineer on his expedition to Trinidad, which gained possession of the island from the Spanish, and in the unsuccessful attack on Puerto Rico in the following month. In 1798 he was promoted to be lieutenant-colonel in the Royal Engineers.

In 1799 Shipley was sent by Lieutenant-general (afterwards Sir) Thomas Trigge in the Amphitrite to survey the coasts in the neighbourhood of the Surinam river to locate a landing-place for a military force to attack Surinam. Surinam surrendered on 20 August 1799, but was soon retaken. Shipley also took part, during March, in the capture of the islands of St. Bartholomew, St. Martin, St. Thomas, and of Santa Cruz. On 21 and 22 June 1803 he commanded a detachment of infantry at the capture of St. Lucia. In April 1804 he accompanied an expedition sent under Brigadier-General (afterwards Sir) Charles Green, temporarily commander in chief in the Leeward Islands, against Dutch Guiana. Shipley landed with Lieutenant Arnold of the Royal Engineers and a small party, to reconnoitre the defences of Surinam, which was again captured. In a despatch to Lord Camden, Green admitted his obligations to Shipley, as commanding engineer, ‘far beyond my power to express.’

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