Charles Wager
| Sir Charles Wager | |
|---|---|
Sir Charles Wager
|
|
| Born |
24 February 1666 Rochester, Kent, England |
| Died | 24 May 1743 (aged 77) Stanley House, Chelsea, England |
| Allegiance |
 Kingdom of Great Britain
|
| Service/branch |
 Royal Navy
|
| Rank | Admiral |
| Battles/wars | War of the Spanish Succession |
Sir Charles Wager PC (24 February 1666 – 24 May 1743) was a British Admiral and First Lord of the Admiralty between 1733 and 1742. Despite heroic active service and steadfast administration and diplomatic service, Wager's reputation has suffered from a profoundly mistaken idea that the navy was then at a low ebb. In reality its numerical preponderance over other navies was greater than at any other time in the century, and its dockyard facilities, overseas bases (Wager was much involved in the development of new bases in the Caribbean), victualling organization, and central co-ordination were by far the most elaborate and advanced. Although British warship design was inferior to French in some respects, the real problem was an insufficiency of the versatile and seaworthy 60-gun ships, a class that Wager's Admiralty had chosen to augment during the 1730s but, as wartime experience would show, not aggressively enough.
Born in Rochester, Kent, after the death of his father Captain Charles Wager (b. 1630), on 24 February 1666. His father had started life in the merchant service and then gained advancement in the navy of the Commonwealth. His mother was Prudence (b. 1640/41), daughter of Vice-Admiral William Goodson, who became a renowned officer in the navy of the time. Wager remarked in 1731, "On both sides I am related to the navy". His paternal grandfather was John Wager (died 1656) of St Margaret's, Rochester, who became a mariner after migrating from Charlton Kings, Cheltenham.
His father commanded the Yarmouth in the fleet that brought Charles II to England and quickly proved to be a capable, trustworthy, well-liked officer of the Royal Navy. He dined at the home of Samuel Pepys who remarked in his diary "A brave, stout fellow this Captain is, and I think very honest.". Two years after the elder Wager's death, Samuel Pepys heard a friend who had been at Tangier contrast his conduct with that of others who had served in the Strait of Gibraltar, remarking, as Pepys noted, "that above all Englishmen that ever was there, there never was any man that behaved himself like poor Charles Wager, whom the very Moores do mention with teares sometimes". Prudence remarried after his father’s death to Alexander Parker, a Quaker and London merchant. There was already an older sister, Prudence, and the marriage produced six more children. The young Charles found himself lacking the advantages of patronage and parentage, necessary for advancement in the Royal Navy of that time, due to his maternal grandfather's dismissal from the navy following the restoration and his father’s untimely death.
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