Fairfax Moresby

Sir Fairfax Moresby
Moresby as Admiral of the Fleet, 1870
Born	1786 Calcutta, India
Died	21 January 1877 Exmouth, Devon
Buried at	St Margaret and St Andrew's Church, Littleham
Allegiance	United Kingdom
Service/branch	Royal Navy
Years of service	1799 - 1870
Rank	Admiral of the Fleet
Commands held	HMS Eclair HMS Acorn HMS Wizard HMS Menai HMS Pembroke HMS Canopus Pacific Station
Battles/wars	French Revolutionary Wars Napoleonic Wars
Awards	Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath
Relations	Rear Admiral John Moresby (son)

Admiral of the Fleet Sir Fairfax Moresby GCB (1786 – 21 January 1877) was a Royal Navy officer. As a junior officer he took part in the unsuccessful expedition to capture Ferrol in Spain during the French Revolutionary Wars. He later saw action during the blockade of Brest during the Napoleonic Wars before becoming commanding officer of a sloop which was sent to the Aegean Sea to defend the population of Malta from pirates; the grateful people presented him with a sword. He then sailed to the Adriatic Sea where he led a naval brigade providing artillery support to the Austrian forces during the siege of Trieste. He went on to be senior naval officer at the Cape of Good Hope and then senior officer at Mauritius, with orders to suppress the slave trade: he concluded the Moresby Treaty with Seyyid Said, the imam of Muscat restricting the scope of local slave trading and conferring on English warships the right of searching and seizing local vessels.

Moresby later became Commander-in-Chief of the Pacific Station. His main responsibility was to protect British commercial interests in Valparaíso in the face of unrest among the people of Chile. He also took an interest in Pitcairn Islands at this time and planned the emigration of the islanders to Norfolk Island.