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 Thomas Foley
GCB (1757 – 9 January 1833) 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 and "Hero of the
Battle of the Nile
The Battle of the Nile (also known as the Battle of Aboukir Bay; french: Bataille d'Aboukir) was a major naval battle fought between the British Royal Navy and the Navy of the French Republic at Aboukir Bay on the Mediterranean coast off the ...
".
Naval career
He was the second son of landowner John Foley of Ridgeway, the Foley family's ancestral estate in the parish of
Llawhaden
Llawhaden ( cy, Llanhuadain) is a village, parish and community in the Hundred of Dungleddy ( cy, Daugleddyf), Pembrokeshire, West Wales. The community of Llawhaden includes the parish of Robeston Wathen, part of Narberth and the hamlet of Gell ...
near
Narberth, Pembrokeshire, and the nephew of Captain Thomas Foley, who accompanied
George Anson, 1st Baron Anson
Admiral of the Fleet George Anson, 1st Baron Anson, (23 April 1697 – 6 June 1762) was a Royal Navy officer. Anson served as a junior officer during the War of the Spanish Succession and then saw active service against Spain at the Batt ...
, on his voyage around the world.
He entered the
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 ...
in 1770, and, during his time as midshipman, saw a good deal of active service in the
West Indies
The West Indies is a subregion of North America, surrounded by the North Atlantic Ocean and the Caribbean Sea that includes 13 independent island countries and 18 dependencies and other territories in three major archipelagos: the Greater A ...
against American privateers. Promoted lieutenant in 1778, he served under
Admiral Keppel (afterwards Viscount) and
Sir Charles Hardy
Sir Charles Hardy (c. 1714 – 18 May 1780) was a Royal Navy officer and politician who sat in the House of Commons between 1764 and 1780. He served as colonial governor of New York from 1755 to 1757.
Early career
Born at Portsmouth, the ...
in the Channel, and with Rodney's squadron was present at the defeat of De Langara off
Cape St Vincent
Cape St. Vincent ( pt, Cabo de São Vicente, ) is a headland in the municipality of Vila do Bispo, in the Algarve, southern Portugal. It is the southwesternmost point of Portugal and of mainland Europe.
History
Cape St. Vincent was already sacr ...
in 1780, and at the relief of
Gibraltar
)
, anthem = " God Save the King"
, song = " Gibraltar Anthem"
, image_map = Gibraltar location in Europe.svg
, map_alt = Location of Gibraltar in Europe
, map_caption = United Kingdom shown in pale green
, mapsize =
, image_map2 = Gib ...
. Still under Rodney's command, he went out to the West Indies, and took his part in the operations which culminated in victory at the
Battle of the Saintes
The Battle of the Saintes (known to the French as the Bataille de la Dominique), also known as the Battle of Dominica, was an important naval battle in the Caribbean between the British and the French that took place 9–12 April 1782. The Brit ...
on 12 April 1782.
In the
French Revolutionary War
The French Revolutionary Wars (french: Guerres de la Révolution française) were a series of sweeping military conflicts lasting from 1792 until 1802 and resulting from the French Revolution. They pitted French First Republic, France against Ki ...
he was engaged from the first. As flag-captain to
Admiral John Gell, and afterwards to
Sir Hyde Parker, Foley took part in the
siege of Toulon
The siege of Toulon (29 August – 19 December 1793) was a military engagement that took place during the Federalist revolts of the French Revolutionary Wars. It was undertaken by Republican forces against Royalist rebels supported by Anglo-Spa ...
in 1793, the action of Golfe Jouan in 1794, and the two fights off Toulon on 13 April and 13 July 1795. At St Vincent he was flag-captain to the second in command on
''Britannia''. After the battle he was transferred to the ''
Goliath
Goliath ( ) ''Goləyāṯ''; ar, جُليات ''Ǧulyāt'' (Christian term) or (Quranic term). is a character in the Book of Samuel, described as a Philistine giant
In folklore, giants (from Ancient Greek: ''gigas'', cognate giga-) a ...
'' (74), in which he was sent out in the following year to reinforce Nelson's fleet in the Mediterranean.
The part played by the ''Goliath'' in the
Battle of the Nile
The Battle of the Nile (also known as the Battle of Aboukir Bay; french: Bataille d'Aboukir) was a major naval battle fought between the British Royal Navy and the Navy of the French Republic at Aboukir Bay on the Mediterranean coast off the ...
was brilliant. She led the squadron round the French van, and this manoeuvre contributed not a little to the result of the day. Whether this was done by Foley's own initiative, or intended by
Horatio Nelson
Vice-Admiral Horatio Nelson, 1st Viscount Nelson, 1st Duke of Bronte (29 September 1758 – 21 October 1805) was a British flag officer in the Royal Navy. His inspirational leadership, grasp of strategy, and unconventional tactics brought abo ...
, has been a matter of controversy.
His next important service was with Nelson in the Baltic. At the beginning of 1801, Nelson was promoted to Vice Admiral of the Blue and after a few months, he took part as the second in command in the
Battle of Copenhagen. The ''Elephant'' carried Nelson's flag and Foley acted as his chief-of-staff. During the action Nelson's commander,
Sir Hyde Parker, who believed that the Danish fire was too strong, signaled for him to break off the action. Nelson ordered that the signal be acknowledged but not repeated. Legend has it that Nelson turned to his flag captain and said:
''"You know, Foley, I only have one eye - I have the right to be blind sometimes" and then holding his telescope to his blind eye said "I really do not see the signal!"''
Nelson's action was approved in retrospect.
Foley was one of Nelson's
"Band of Brothers". Nelson himself was a sea-officer par excellence. Yet there were many who struggled, suffered and were wounded as often as he. This could not help but develop a close relationship among the men. Nelson himself was very aware of the brotherhood which had arisen. In his biography of Nelson, David Howarth makes this clear:
''"...Nelson's famous phrase, "I had the happiness to command a band of brothers'...After his first great victory, Nelson called his captains 'my darling children', and none was the least embarrassed by that. Under
Jervis, the captains of the Mediterranean fleet were becoming a brotherhood, bonded by skill, experience, mutual respect and a common cause. Maybe they had not thought of it in that way before; but from about this time they all did, and Nelson most of all. And the concept - so suitable to his nature - became an important, conscious element in his conduct of the war."''
An amusing illustration of the affection Nelson inspired in his captains, and of the half maternal care they exercised over the fragile and stunted body of their famous leader, is supplied by a letter from Nelson himself to Ball, written from Kioge Bay in 1801. He was racked with the Baltic cold, and wroth, as was common with him, with the still chillier winds which blew from the Admiralty Board:
''"But,"'' he says, ''"all in the fleet are so truly kind to me that I should be a wretch not to cheer up. Foley has put me under a regimen of milk at four in the morning; Murray has given me lozenges;
Hardy
Hardy may refer to:
People
* Hardy (surname)
* Hardy (given name)
* Hardy (singer), American singer-songwriter Places Antarctica
* Mount Hardy, Enderby Land
* Hardy Cove, Greenwich Island
* Hardy Rocks, Biscoe Islands
Australia
* Hardy, Sout ...
is as good as ever, and all have proved their desire to keep my mind easy."''
That picture of one sea veteran administering warm milk to his admiral at four o'clock in the morning is amusing enough; but it shows more effectively than graver things could do the feeling Nelson inspired in his captains.
Ill-health obliged Foley to decline Nelson's offer (made when on the point of starting for the
Battle of Trafalgar
The Battle of Trafalgar (21 October 1805) was a naval engagement between the British Royal Navy and the combined fleets of the French and Spanish Navies during the War of the Third Coalition (August–December 1805) of the Napoleonic Wars (180 ...
) of the post of
Captain of the Fleet
In the Royal Navy of the 18th and 19th centuries a captain of the fleet could be appointed to assist an admiral when the admiral had ten or more ships to command. The equivalent post was called fleet captain in the U.S. Navy of the 18th and 19th ...
. Therefore it was Foley's fellow "brother" Thomas Hardy who was present at Nelson's death.
From 1811 to 1815, Foley commanded in
the Downs from his flagship , and at the peace was made KCB. Sir Thomas Foley rose to be full admiral and GCB. He died while serving as
Commander-in-Chief, Portsmouth
The Commander-in-Chief, Portsmouth, was a senior commander of the Royal Navy for hundreds of years. The commanders-in-chief were based at premises in High Street, Portsmouth from the 1790s until the end of Sir Thomas Williams's tenure, his succe ...
in 1833.
Marriage
He was married on 31 Jul 1802 to Lady
Lucy Anne FitzGerald
Lady Lucy Anne FitzGerald (5 February 1771 – 20 January 1851) was an Anglo-Irish political radical: a supporter, with her mother Lady Emily, of her cousin, the English Whig reformer Charles James Fox and, with her brother Lord Edward, of th ...
. She was the youngest surviving daughter of
James FitzGerald, 1st Duke of Leinster
Lieutenant-General James FitzGerald, 1st Duke of Leinster, PC (Ire) (29 May 1722 – 19 November 1773), styled Lord Offaly until 1743 and known as The Earl of Kildare between 1743 and 1761 and as The Marquess of Kildare between 1761 and 17 ...
and
Lady Emily Lennox
Emily FitzGerald, Duchess of Leinster (6 October 1731 – 27 March 1814), known before 1747 as Lady Emily Lennox, from 1747 to 1761 as The Countess of Kildare and from 1761 to 1766 as The Marchioness of Kildare, was the second of the famous Lenno ...
. Her mother was the great-granddaughter of
Charles II, King of England, Scotland and Ireland and his mistress
Louise de Kérouaille, Duchess of Portsmouth
Louise Renée de Penancoët de Kéroualle, Duchess of Portsmouth (5 September 1649 – 14 November 1734) was a mistress of Charles II of England.
Early life
Louise was the daughter of Guillaume de Penancoët, Seigneur de Kéroualle (d. 1690) ...
.
Lucy was the favourite sister of
Lord Edward FitzGerald
Lord Edward FitzGerald (15 October 1763 – 4 June 1798) was an Irish aristocrat who abandoned his prospects as a distinguished veteran of British service in the American War of Independence, and as an Irish Parliamentarian, to embrace the caus ...
, one of the ill-fated leaders of the
Irish Rebellion of 1798
The Irish Rebellion of 1798 ( ga, Éirí Amach 1798; Ulster-Scots: ''The Hurries'') was a major uprising against British rule in Ireland. The main organising force was the Society of United Irishmen, a republican revolutionary group influence ...
, and was herself an active participant in the rebellion. She worked as a conduit, clandestinely transmitting letters between the Revolutionary Committee in Dublin and their agents in Paris. A biographer of Lord Edward wrote of Lucy that she "''most closely resembled him (Edward) in her strong sense of the ludicrous and her passionate love for justice.''"
She wrote in 1798 of her hope for Irish liberation in an address to the Irish nation that wasn’t published until many years later:
''Irishmen, Countrymen, it is Edward FitzGerald's sister who addresses you: it is a woman but that woman is his sister: she would therefore die for you as he did...Yes, this is the moment, the precious moment which must either stamp with Infamy, the name of Irishmen and denote you forever wretched, enslaved to the power of England, or raise the Paddies to the consequence which they deserve and which England shall no longer withhold, to happiness, freedom, glory...''
The couple's principal residence was Admiral Foley's country estate, Abermarlais, near Llansadwrn in Carmarthenshire, which he had purchased from Sir
Cornwallis Maude, 1st Viscount Hawarden
Cornwallis Maude, 1st Viscount Hawarden (19 September 1729 – 23 August 1803) was an Anglo-Irish peer and politician.
Hawarden was the second son of Sir Robert Maude, 1st Baronet and his wife, Eleanor Cornwallis, daughter of Thomas Cornwallis ...
in 1795 with his share of the booty resulting from the capture of a Spanish treasure ship, the ''St Jago'', in 1793. They also had a house at Manchester Square in London. After Sir Thomas' death the widowed Lady Lucy lived at Arundel in Sussex until 1841 when she moved abroad and settled in the south of France, where she spent the remainder of her life. The Foleys had no children. After Lady Lucy's death in 1851 the Abermarlais estate passed according to the terms of Sir Thomas' will to his great-nephew Henry Foley (1824-1871), a grandson of Sir Thomas' elder brother John Herbert Foley. Henry Foley only inherited the estate because Sir Thomas' preferred heir, Osborne Foley, a captain in the Royal Navy, had died without issue in 1848. Abermarlais Park remained in the family until 1909, when it was sold to the Hunter family. The last known person to live in the house was the reclusive Miss Campbell-Davys, before a fire gutted the house in 1980 leading to its demolition in 1982, a terrible loss for the county on account of its long and fascinating history as well as its architectural significance, the original late-medieval manor house having been demolished in order for Admiral Foley to build his more commodious neoclassical mansion nearby. The site of Abermarlais is now used as a caravan park.
[Phillips-Evans, J. ''The Longcrofts: 500 Years of a British Family'', Amazon (2012), pp. 287-297]
Bibliography
*J. B. Herbert, ''Life and Services of Sir Thomas Foley'' (Cardiff, 1884).
*Tom Wareham, ‘Foley, Sir Thomas (1757–1833)’, ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'', Oxford University Press, Sept 2004; online edn, May 200
accessed 9 March 2008
External links
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Foley, Sir Thomas
1757 births
1833 deaths
Royal Navy admirals
Royal Navy personnel of the American Revolutionary War
Royal Navy personnel of the French Revolutionary Wars
British naval commanders of the Napoleonic Wars
Knights Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath