Charles William Barkley

Charles William Barkley (1759 – 16 May 1832) was a ship captain and maritime fur trader. He was born in Hertford, England, son of Charles Barkley.

His name is sometimes erroneously spelled Barclay due to the misspelling "Barclay Sound" (in what is now Vancouver Island, British Columbia) on early Admiralty charts, which arose from a mistake from Land District records. The misspelling originated in 1859 with the government agent William Eddy Banfield who issued certificates identifying the "Barclay Land District." The name was corrected to Barkley Sound in 1904. (Ironically enough, Banfield's own name would be misspelled in the name of the town of Bamfield, also on Vancouver Island.)

At the age of 11, Charles Barkley went to sea with his father, who was the commander of the East India Company ship Pacific. His father drowned in the Hooghly river, Calcutta, India while Charles was still a boy. Charles went on to sail to the West Indies in the merchantman Bestsy. He made seven voyages to the Far East for the East India Company and rose rapidly in the company's service.

He was married in 1786, he soon after left the East India Company, taking what was apparently his first command, the 400-ton ship Loundon, ready for a trading voyage to the Pacific Northwest coast of North America. The ship, which was renamed Imperial Eagle and falsely registered as an Austrian in an attempt to avoid the cost of acquiring a trading license from the East India Company, was owned by various supercargoes, including several East India Company directors in England, who together called themselves the Austrian East India Company. Daniel Beale organised the voyage of the Imperial Eagle when he returned to London from Canton on the HCS General Coote in August 1786. Beale had been the purser of, successively, the HC ships Walpole and General Coote on voyages between London and Canton in 1783–1786: in 1783 he joined the Canton partnership of John Henry Cox and John Reid in their mercantile ventures. Beale's brother or cousin, John Beale, sailed in the Imperial Eagle as purser, but was killed in an affray with the natives on the North West Coast. Barkley was among the backers, subscribing £3,000 to the venture.John Meares, who was also attempting to avoid license fees by falsely sailing under the Portuguese flag, was also one of the backers.

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