James Fitzjames
| James Fitzjames | |
|---|---|
| Born | 27 July 1813 London |
| Died | 1848? Canada (?) |
| Allegiance |
 United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland
|
| Service/branch | Royal Navy |
| Rank | Captain |
| Commands held | HMS Clio, HMS Erebus |
| Battles/wars | Syrian War, First Opium War |
| Relations | Admiral Lord Gambier, Sir James Gambier |
Captain James Fitzjames RN (27 July 1813–after 1848?) was a British naval officer who participated in two major exploratory expeditions, the Euphrates Expedition and the Franklin Expedition to the Arctic, and a third up the Yellow River into China. He was illegitimate, and during his life and after his friends and relatives took great pains to conceal his origins. It has recently been revealed that his true father was Sir James Gambier, although the identity of his mother remains unknown.
James Fitzjames was born on 27 July 1813. He was baptised on 24 February 1815 at St Marylebone Parish Church in London. The names given by the people who posed as his parents, 'James Fitzjames, gentleman' and 'Ann Fitzjames', must be presumed to be false. It is not clear who they actually were. Shortly after he was given into the care of the Rev. Robert Coningham and his wife Louisa Capper, who wrote philosophical and poetical works. The Coninghams were well-off members of an extended family of Scots/Irish ancestry who, with others from a similar background, settled in the Watford area of Hertfordshire. Other prominent members of this family were the Campbells, the Boyds, the Sterlings and the Gledstanes.
The Coningham family seem to have lived at several locations in Hertfordshire, settling in the late 1820s at a substantial 30 acre country estate called Rose Hill in Abbots Langley. Robert and Louisa had one son, William Coningham (1815–1884), who was James Fitzjames' closest friend, the two boys were brought up together as brothers.
The Coninghams were a well-educated couple who had extensive connections in British intellectual circles of the time. Robert Coningham was a Cambridge educated clergyman although he never took a living. He was a cousin of the well-known author of the time John Sterling, and a friend of such intellectuals as Julius Hare and Thomas Carlyle. Before she married, Louisa Coningham had taught at the Rothsay House girls' school in Kennington and was the author of two books, 'A Poetical History of England' and 'An Abridgement of Locke's Essay concerning Human Understanding: With Some Conjectures Respecting the Interference of Nature with Education'.
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