Erasmus Ommanney

Sir Erasmus Ommanney
Admiral Sir Erasmus Ommanney by Stephen Pearce
Born	22 May 1814
Died	21 December 1904 (1904-12-22) (aged 90)
Allegiance	United Kingdom
Service/branch	Royal Navy
Rank	Admiral
Commands held	HMS Assistance
Awards	Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath

Admiral Sir Erasmus Ommanney KCB, FRS, FRGS, JP (22 May 1814 – 21 December 1904) was a Royal Navy officer and an Arctic explorer of the Victorian era.

Born in London in 1814 the seventh son in a family of eight sons and three daughters of Sir Francis Molyneux Ommanney (1774?–1840), a naval agent and from 1818 to 1826 MP for Barnstaple, and his wife, Georgiana Frances, daughter of Joshua Hawkes. The Ommanneys had long distinguished themselves in the Royal Navy, Ommanney's grandfather being Rear Admiral Cornthwaite Ommanney (d. 1801), and his uncles were Admiral Sir John Acworth Ommanney and Admiral Henry Manaton Ommanney. Major General Edward Lacon Ommanney Royal Engineers was his eldest brother and Prebendary George Druce Wynne Ommanney was a younger brother.

Ommanney entered the Navy aged 12 in August 1826 under his uncle, Captain John Ommanney, the captain of HMS Albion, which in December 1826 convoyed to Lisbon the troops sent to protect Portugal against the Spanish invasion. The ship then went to the Mediterranean, and on 20 October 1827 Ommanney took part in the Battle of Navarino aged just 13. The captured flag of the Turkish Commander-in-Chief was handed down by seniority among the surviving officers until 1890, when Ommanney, the sole survivor of the action, presented it to King George I of Greece.