Admiral
Admiral is one of the highest ranks in some navies. In the Commonwealth nations and the United States, a "full" admiral is equivalent to a "full" general in the army or the air force, and is above vice admiral and below admiral of the fleet, ...
Sir Archibald Dickson, 1st Baronet (c.1739–1803) was a
Royal Navy officer.
Naval career
He was born around 1739 the son of Archibald Dickson. He initially entered the merchant navy in 1752. He moved to the
Royal Navy in 1755 and passed the lieutenants exam in 1759.
In 1765 he was given command of
HMS Egmont and in 1771 took command of
HMS Thunder __NOTOC__
Ten ships of the Royal Navy have been called HMS ''Thunder'', while an eleventh was planned but never built:
* was a 5-gun bomb vessel launched in 1695. She was captured by a French privateer in 1696.
* was a 6-gun bomb vessel captu ...
.
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 ...
on 31 January 1774, Dickson was given command of the
fourth-rate HMS ''Antelope'' in January 1774 and the
sixth-rate
In the rating system of the Royal Navy used to categorise sailing warships, a sixth-rate was the designation for small warships mounting between 20 and 28 carriage-mounted guns on a single deck, sometimes with smaller guns on the upper works and ...
HMS ''Greyhound'' in October 1775.
In Greyhound, he took part in the
action against the Penobscot Expedition in July 1779 and fought at the
Battle of Martinique in April 1780 during the
American Revolutionary War.
[ He was next given command of the third-rate HMS ''Dublin'' and saw action at the Battle of Cape Spartel in October 1782. After that he was given command of the third-rate HMS ''Goliath'' in 1786, of the third-rate HMS ''Captain'' in 1790 and the third-rate HMS ''Egmont'' in 1793.][
Promoted to rear-admiral on 12 April 1794 and to vice-admiral on 1 June 1795, Dickson became Commander-in-Chief, North Sea in 1800. In August 1800 a diplomatic mission was sent to Copenhagen under Lord Whitworth, accompanied by a fleet under Dickson's command. He was promoted to full ]admiral
Admiral is one of the highest ranks in some navies. In the Commonwealth nations and the United States, a "full" admiral is equivalent to a "full" general in the army or the air force, and is above vice admiral and below admiral of the fleet, ...
on 1 January 1801,[ with at Yarmouth serving as his flagship. She was paid off in April 1802.
]
Baronetcy and death
In honour of his service, Dickson was created Sir Archibald Dickson, 1st Baronet on 21 September 1802.
He died near Norwich and died in May 1803.
Family
Dickson had married twice: firstly to Elizabeth Porter who died in 1779, and (after a 20 year wait) in 1800 he married Frances Anne Willis.
References
Sources
*
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Dickson, Archibald
Royal Navy admirals
1803 deaths
Baronets in the Baronetage of the United Kingdom
Royal Navy personnel of the Seven Years' War
Royal Navy personnel of the American Revolutionary War
Royal Navy personnel of the French Revolutionary Wars
Royal Navy personnel of the Napoleonic Wars