Rear Admiral Rear admiral is a senior naval flag officer rank, equivalent to a major general and air vice marshal and above that of a commodore and captain, but below that of a vice admiral. It is regarded as a two star "admiral" rank. It is often regarde ...

Robert Swanton (1710–1765) was a

Royal Navy The Royal Navy (RN) is the United Kingdom's naval warfare force. Although warships were used by English and Scottish kings from the early medieval period, the first major maritime engagements were fought in the Hundred Years' War against F ...

officer who became commander-in-chief of the

Leeward Islands Station The Leeward Islands Station originally known as the Commander-in-Chief at Barbadoes and the Leeward Islands was a formation or command of the Kingdom of Great Britain and then the United Kingdom's Royal Navy stationed at English Harbour, Antigua, L ...

Naval career

Swanton joined the Royal Navy on 8 September 1724 as a cadet. He was given an operational post as lieutenant in January 1734. In May 1735 he was serving on HMS Rippon moving to

HMS Oxford Two ships of the Royal Navy have borne the name HMS ''Oxford'', after the city of Oxford: * (i) was a 26-gun fifth-rate ship launched at Deptford in 1656. The ship was given to Colonel Sir Thomas Modyford, the Governor of Jamaica, in March 1667 an ...

in April 1737. In February 1738 he moved to HMS Flamborough on which he was part of the attack on St Augustine in 1740. Promoted to

captain Captain is a title, an appellative for the commanding officer of a military unit; the supreme leader of a navy ship, merchant ship, aeroplane, spacecraft, or other vessel; or the commander of a port, fire or police department, election precinct, e ...

in 1743, he took command of the

fifth-rate In the rating system of the Royal Navy used to categorise sailing warships, a fifth rate was the second-smallest class of warships in a hierarchical system of six " ratings" based on size and firepower. Rating The rating system in the Royal N ...

HMS ''Mary Galley'' in August 1744, the

third-rate In the rating system of the Royal Navy, a third rate was a ship of the line which from the 1720s mounted between 64 and 80 guns, typically built with two gun decks (thus the related term two-decker). Years of experience proved that the third r ...

HMS ''Hampton Court'' in 1757 and the third-rate HMS ''Vanguard'' later that year. In HMS ''Vanguard'' he saw action at the Siege of Louisbourg in 1758 and at the

Battle of Pointe-aux-Trembles The Battle of Pointe-aux-Trembles was a naval and land engagement that took place on 16 May 1760 during the French and Indian War on the north shore of the Saint Lawrence River. It was near the present-day village of Neuville, in New France, du ...

in 1760 during the

French and Indian War The French and Indian War (1754–1763) was a theater of the Seven Years' War, which pitted the North American colonies of the British Empire against those of the French, each side being supported by various Native American tribes. At the ...

. He became commander-in-chief of the

in 1763. He died in Westminster on 11 July 1765.

Family

His wife Emma died in 1822. They had a daughter, Frances (d.1841). He was brother-in-law to Admiral John Carter Allen.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Swanton, Robert Royal Navy rear admirals 1765 deaths