John Richards Lapenotiere

John Richards Lapenotière
A Miniature believed to depict John Richards Lapenotière
Born	1770 Ilfracombe, Devon, England
Died	19 January 1834 Roseland, near Menheniot, Cornwall
Allegiance	United Kingdom
Service/branch	Royal Navy
Years of service	1780 - 1811
Rank	Post Captain
Battles/wars	Battle of Trafalgar, 1805 Battle of Copenhagen, 1807

Captain John Richards Lapenotière (1770 – 19 January 1834) was a British Royal Navy officer who, as a lieutenant commanding the tiny topsail schooner HMS Pickle, observed the Battle of Trafalgar on 21 October 1805, participated in the rescue operations which followed it and then carried the dispatches of the victory and the death of Admiral Nelson to Britain.

Born in 1770 in Ilfracombe, Devon to a Huguenot exile family that came to Britain in 1688 with William of Orange, he came from a military family: His great grandfather, Frederick La Penotiere, served in the Royal Irish Regiment in the campaigns of the Duke of Marlborough in the War of the Spanish Succession and received a bounty for his service at the Battle of Blenheim, in 1704.

John followed his father, Frederick, into naval service, joining his father’s ship unofficially, at just ten years old. At fifteen he enlisted with Nathaniel Portlock on a commercial expedition to what is now Alaska and the Canadian Pacific coast (then a bare and savage coast), where he learned the principles of seamanship in difficult climates and the handling of small ships, which was very advantageous to him, given that he spent most of his career in such craft. After a period of service as a midshipman in the Royal Navy, Lapenotière again took a leave of absence, to accompany Portlock and William Bligh on a breadfruit expedition to the South Pacific, to replace those plants lost following the Mutiny on the Bounty.