William Brown (Royal Navy officer)
| William Brown | |
|---|---|
| Born |
8 May 1764 Leesthorpe Hall, Melton Mowbray, Leicestershire |
| Died | 20 September 1814 (aged 50) Kingston, Jamaica |
| Allegiance |
 United Kingdom
|
| Service/branch |
 Royal Navy
|
| Years of service | 1770s to 1814 |
| Rank | Rear-Admiral |
| Commands held | Jamaica Station |
| Battles/wars |
French Revolutionary Wars • Glorious First of June Napoleonic Wars • Battle of Cape Finisterre |
William Brown (8 May 1764 – 20 September 1814) was an officer of the British Royal Navy who served in increasingly senior positions during a long period from the American Revolutionary War, including the French Revolutionary War, and until the Napoleonic Wars. He began his naval career as a servant to Captain Philemon Pownoll in the frigate HMS Apollo and became a midshipman after two years. He then served on HMS Resolution with Lord Robert Manners and came home with him in HMS Andromache. He spent the next five years ashore in peacetime. After a brief time on HMS Bounty he was taken off by the First lord and moved to HMS Ariel before the Bounty sailed. He was then moved to HMS Leander, where he was commissioned by Admiral Peyton in 1788. He later captained a series of ships serving in the Mediterranean, the North Sea, the Channel Fleet and then the Mediterranean, again with lord St Vincent. He captained HMS Ajax in the Blockade of Brest and the Battle of Cape Finisterre and then at Cadiz at Nelson's personal request. After Trafalgar he had a series of shore postings as Dockyard Commissioner at Malta and Shearness before being made Commander in Chief of the Channel Islands and then Jamaica where he died.
William Brown was born in 1764, the second son of John Suffield Brown, a local landowner and Deputy Lord Lieutenant of Leicestershire. Aged 13 he joined the navy by 1777 and was a captain's servant. After two years of service in the American Revolutionary War in the Apollo she returned to the Channel Fleet, where William was lucky to escape with a wounded hand after being shot by a sharpshooter in the rigging of a French frigate they had engaged, the shot having passed through the brim of his hat. Apollo subsequently joined Admiral Rodney's fleet for the relief of Gibraltar and Menorca when she participated in the Moonlight battle. William was then with Lord Robert Manners in HMS Resolution for two years and was present at the Battle of the Saints. He accompanied his wounded captain in the HMS Andromache to return to England and was with Manners when he died. He was an efficient officer who passed for lieutenant in 1788 and was made commander of the 18-gun sloop HMS Zebra during the Spanish armament in 1790. In the first year of the French Revolutionary Wars he was in command of HMS Fly.
By his promotion to captain, Brown had already seen extensive service in the Mediterranean and in the Channel Fleet, Brown was made a post captain and given the frigate HMS Venus. and was attached to Lord Howe's force during the Atlantic campaign of May 1794. At the culminating battle on the Glorious First of June, Brown acted as a repeater for Howe's signals to emphasise them to captains further away from the flagship. Late in the action he also helped tow wrecked ships out of the battleline.
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