Robert Mends
| Sir Robert Mends | |
|---|---|
| Born | c. 1767 Pembrokeshire |
| Died | 4 September 1823 HMS Owen Glendower, off the Gold Coast |
| Allegiance |
 United Kingdom
|
| Service/branch |
 Royal Navy
|
| Years of service | 1779 to 1823 |
| Rank | Royal Navy Captain |
| Battles/wars |
American War of Independence • Battle of Cape St Vincent • Great Siege of Gibraltar • Battle of Cape Henry • Siege of Yorktown • Battle of Dominica French Revolutionary Wars • Siege of Toulon • Battle of Groix Napoleonic Wars • Action of 6 April 1809 • Peninsular War |
| Awards | Spanish Knight of the Order of Charles III |
Captain Sir Robert Mends (c. 1767 – 4 September 1823) was a prominent British Royal Navy officer of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century, who lost an arm in the American War of Independence, caught in an explosion at the Battle of Groix in 1795 and wounded again at the Action of 6 April 1809. In 1815 he was made a Spanish knight for his services in the Peninsular War and was awarded a pension of £300 a year from the British government. He remained in service at the end of the Napoleonic Wars and in 1821 was made commodore on the West African station, on which he died in 1823.
Robert Mends was born into a prominent Pembrokeshire family in the late 1760s, probably 1767. He joined the Royal Navy in 1779, serving on HMS Culloden under Captain George Balfour during the American War of Independence. Mends was almost instantly in action, Culloden fighting at the Battle of Cape St Vincent and at the Great Siege of Gibraltar in 1780. The following year, Mends joined the frigate HMS Guadeloupe and was in action at the Battle of Cape Henry in March 1781 before participating in the Siege of Yorktown. During the fighting, Guadeloupe was destroyed and Mends wounded in the right arm and left knee. Although his leg wound healed, Mends' arm had to be amputated. He was awarded a pension of £7 a year to compensate for his lost limb.
Recovering from his wounds, Mends joined HMS Conqueror and fought at the Battle of Dominica, where he was again seriously wounded after being struck in the head by a wooden splinter. Mends remained in service at the end of the war and joined HMS Grampus in 1786, under Commodore Edward Thompson off the African coast. In 1789 he was promoted to lieutenant and spent time on the brig HMS Childers in the English Channel. At the outbreak of the French Revolutionary Wars in 1793, Mends was serving on the ship of the line HMS Colossus in the Mediterranean and was present at the Siege of Toulon. In 1795, Colossus joined the Channel Fleet and fought at the Battle of Groix, at which Mends was caught in a large explosion that left him very badly burned.
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