John Markham (Royal Navy officer)

John Markham
Admiral John Markham (Thomas Lawrence, ca. 1793)
Born	13 June 1761 Westminster
Died	13 February 1827 (1827-02-14) (aged 65) Naples
Allegiance	United Kingdom
Service/branch	Royal Navy
Years of service	1775–1826
Rank	Admiral
Battles/wars	American Revolutionary War • Siege of Charleston • Battle of Cape Henry French Revolutionary Wars • Action of 10 April 1795 Napoleonic Wars
Other work	MP for Portsmouth

Admiral John Markham, (13 June 1761 – 13 February 1827) was a Royal Navy officer of the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries who is best known for his service at the Admiralty as a supporter of Earl St Vincent and later as MP for Portsmouth.

John Markham was born in 1761 at Westminster, second son to William Markham, the Archbishop of York, and Sarah. He was educated at Westminster School. In March 1775, he joined the Royal Navy at the outbreak of the American Revolutionary War. He served under George Elphinstone in HMS Romney and HMS Perseus.

Going to the West Indies in February 1777, the Perseus captured another privateer, to which again young Markham was sent as prize-master, and a third time, in May, he was appointed in a like capacity to a large merchant-ship, captured on the coast of Carolina. He had with him four men and a boy from the Perseus, and four of the prisoners, americanised Frenchmen, to assist in working the ship. During a violent gale the ship sprang a leak, and became waterlogged. The English seamen, growing desperate, got dead drunk, and the Frenchmen, arming themselves as they best could, attacked Markham, who was at the helm. He succeeded, however, in beating them below. The ship, too, though waterlogged, was laden with barrel-staves, and kept afloat until her crew were rescued by a passing vessel. Some months later, he arrived in England, to find his family in mourning for him, Elphinstone having written that he had certainly been lost with the ship.

He subsequently served on the North American and West Indian stations in HMS Phoenix, HMS Roebuck, HMS Royal Oak, HMS London, HMS Volcano and HMS Zebra, participating at the Siege of Charleston and the Battle of Cape Henry.