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 Robert Stopford (5 February 1768 – 25 June 1847), was a distinguished officer in 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 Fr ...

whose career spanned over 60 years, from the

French Revolutionary Wars 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 France against Britain, Austria, Pruss ...

to the Syrian War.

Naval career

Stopford was the third son of

James Stopford, 2nd Earl of Courtown James Stopford, 2nd Earl of Courtown KP, PC (Ire) (28 May 1731 – 30 March 1810), known as Viscount Stopford from 1762 to 1770, was an Anglo-Irish peer and Tory politician who sat in the British House of Commons between 1774 and 1793. Courtown ...

, and his wife

Mary Mary may refer to: People * Mary (name), a feminine given name (includes a list of people with the name) Religious contexts * New Testament people named Mary, overview article linking to many of those below * Mary, mother of Jesus, also calle ...

(née Powys). He joined the

in 1780 and became a

Lieutenant A lieutenant ( , ; abbreviated Lt., Lt, LT, Lieut and similar) is a commissioned officer rank in the armed forces of many nations. The meaning of lieutenant differs in different militaries (see comparative military ranks), but it is often ...

in 1785.Robert Stopford at Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
/ref> Commander Stopford was captain of between December 1789 and October 1790. In 1790 he was promoted to captain at the age of 22 and was briefly captain of HMS ''Lowestoffe''. Stopford fought at the Battle of the

Glorious First of June The Glorious First of June (1 June 1794), also known as the Fourth Battle of Ushant, (known in France as the or ) was the first and largest fleet action of the naval conflict between the Kingdom of Great Britain and the First French Republic ...

in 1794, commanding the

frigate A frigate () is a type of warship. In different eras, the roles and capabilities of ships classified as frigates have varied somewhat. The name frigate in the 17th to early 18th centuries was given to any full-rigged ship built for speed an ...

(32). During the battle ''Aquilon'' had the task of standing off and repeating the signals from the flagship. ''Aquilon'' also towed the ''Marlborough'' out of the line of fire when she was dismasted, for which Lord Howe thanked him personally.''United service Magazine'' (1847), p.639. One of Stopford's officers on ''Aquilon'' was

Francis Beaufort Rear-Admiral Sir Francis Beaufort (; 27 May 1774 – 17 December 1857) was an Irish hydrographer, rear admiral of the Royal Navy, and creator of the Beaufort cipher and the Beaufort scale. Early life Francis Beaufort was descende ...

, the inventor of the Beaufort Wind-Scale. On 10 March 1796, Stopford was captain 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 ...

frigate HMS ''Phaeton'', of 38 guns, when she engaged and captured the 20-gun French

corvette A corvette is a small warship. It is traditionally the smallest class of vessel considered to be a proper (or " rated") warship. The warship class above the corvette is that of the frigate, while the class below was historically that of the slo ...

''Bonne Citoyenne'' of

Cape Finisterre Cape Finisterre (, also ; gl, Cabo Fisterra, italic=no ; es, Cabo Finisterre, italic=no ) is a rock-bound peninsula on the west coast of Galicia, Spain. In Roman times it was believed to be an end of the known world. The name Finisterre, like ...

. Stopford took her back to England as his prize. The Royal Navy then bought her in as HMS ''Bonne Citoyenne'', a

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 a ...

sloop of war. During his service in the Channel, ''Phaeton'' captured in all some 13 privateers and three vessels of war, as well as recovering numerous vessels that the French had taken. In 1799, Stopford was appointed captain of the 74-gun third rate HMS ''Excellent'' in the Channel Fleet. He sailed ''Excellent'' to 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 Greate ...

where he hoisted a commodore's pennant and served for eight months as the Commander-in-Chief of the Leeward Islands Station in 1802. In 1803, Stopford became captain of the

ship of the line A ship of the line was a type of naval warship constructed during the Age of Sail from the 17th century to the mid-19th century. The ship of the line was designed for the naval tactic known as the line of battle, which depended on the two colu ...

(74), in Horatio Nelson's fleet. He became a Colonel of

Marines Marines, or naval infantry, are typically a military force trained to operate in littoral zones in support of naval operations. Historically, tasks undertaken by marines have included helping maintain discipline and order aboard the ship (refl ...

in November 1805 and received a

gold medal A gold medal is a medal awarded for highest achievement in a non-military field. Its name derives from the use of at least a fraction of gold in form of plating or alloying in its manufacture. Since the eighteenth century, gold medals have be ...

for his conduct at the

Battle of San Domingo The Battle of San Domingo was a naval battle of the Napoleonic Wars fought on 6 February 1806 between squadrons of French and British ships of the line off the southern coast of the French-occupied Spanish colonial Captaincy General of Santo Do ...

in 1806, while still in command of ''Spencer''. Stopford was wounded during the battle; he recovered, but the wound would plague him for the rest of his life. Admiral Sir Robert Stopford

He took part in the

British invasions of the Río de la Plata The British invasions of the River Plate were two unsuccessful British attempts to seize control of areas in the Spanish colony of the Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata that were located around the Río de la Plata in South America – in ...

and Battle of Copenhagen of 1806–07, and attacked Rochefort in 1808. Stopford played an important part in the

Battle of the Basque Roads The Battle of the Basque Roads, also known as the Battle of Aix Roads (French: ''Bataille de l'île d'Aix'', also ''Affaire des brûlots'', rarely ''Bataille de la rade des Basques''), was a major naval battle of the Napoleonic Wars, fought in th ...

. He was appointed to command HMS ''Caesar'' (80), with a squadron of two ships of the line and five frigates. On 23 February 1809 he fell in the four French frigates under the batteries of Sable d'Olonne, an action which left them disabled. Stopford continued his blockade until Lord Gambier chased a fleet of ten French sail of the line into the Basque Roads and assumed command. In the summer of 1809 he was called as a witness at the Court-martial of James, Lord Gambier which assessed whether Admiral Lord Gambier had failed to support Captain Lord Cochrane. Gambier was controversially cleared of all charges. In 1810, he sailed to South Africa to become Commander-in-Chief of the Cape of Good Hope Station. He directed the operations that resulted in the capture of Java when on 8 August 1811, the Dutch settlement of Batavia capitulated to the British under Stopford and Lieutenant-General Sir Samuel Auchmuty. The British fleet consisted of some 100 vessels, including eight cruisers belonging to the

East India Company The East India Company (EIC) was an English, and later British, joint-stock company founded in 1600 and dissolved in 1874. It was formed to trade in the Indian Ocean region, initially with the East Indies (the Indian subcontinent and Sou ...

. He was appointed

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 succes ...

in 1827.

The Officers Monument, Greenwich Hospital Cemetery

Stopford became

Rear-Admiral of the United Kingdom The Rear-Admiral of the United Kingdom is a now honorary office generally held by a senior (possibly retired) Royal Navy admiral, though the current incumbent is a retired Royal Marine General. Despite the title, the Rear-Admiral of the Unite ...

in 1834. His last active post, in his early seventies, was as commander-in-chief of the

Mediterranean The Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the Mediterranean Basin and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Western and Southern Europe and Anatolia, on the south by North Africa, and on ...

fleet during the Syrian War against the forces of Mehemet Ali. As Vice Admiral on board (100) and subsequently , he was in command of the combined British, Turkish, and Austrian fleet during the bombardment of

Acre The acre is a unit of land area used in the imperial and US customary systems. It is traditionally defined as the area of one chain by one furlong (66 by 660 feet), which is exactly equal to 10 square chains, of a square mile, 4,840 square ...

on 3 November 1840. For his services in the Syrian War, Stopford was given the Freedom of the City of the

City of London The City of London is a city, ceremonial county and local government district that contains the historic centre and constitutes, alongside Canary Wharf, the primary central business district (CBD) of London. It constituted most of London f ...

and presented with a commemorative "freedom box". The ornate silver and oak box is part of the collection of the

National Maritime Museum The National Maritime Museum (NMM) is a maritime museum in Greenwich, London. It is part of Royal Museums Greenwich, a network of museums in the Maritime Greenwich World Heritage Site. Like other publicly funded national museums in the Unite ...

Greenwich Greenwich ( , ,) is a town in south-east London, England, within the ceremonial county of Greater London. It is situated east-southeast of Charing Cross. Greenwich is notable for its maritime history and for giving its name to the Greenwich ...

. The following year he became Governor of the Greenwich Hospital at

, with the rank of admiral. He is buried in Greenwich Hospital Cemetery. The cemetery was largely made into a pocket park in the late 19th century but his name is listed on the west face of the Officers in the centre of the park.

Family

Stopford married Mary, daughter of Robert Fanshawe, in 1809. Their eldest son, Robert Fanshawe Stopford (1811–1891), also rose to the rank of admiral, and their second son, James John Stopford (1817–1868), became a vice admiral. Stopford died in June 1847, aged 79. His wife survived him by almost twenty years and died in June 1866. He was one of the two Whig MPs for

Ipswich Ipswich () is a port town and borough in Suffolk, England, of which it is the county town. The town is located in East Anglia about away from the mouth of the River Orwell and the North Sea. Ipswich is both on the Great Eastern Main Line ...

in the United Kingdom parliament from 1806 to 1807.

References

, - , - , - , - , - {{DEFAULTSORT:Stopford, Robert 1768 births 1847 deaths Royal Navy admirals Knights Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath Knights Grand Cross of the Order of St Michael and St George Royal Navy personnel of the French Revolutionary Wars Royal Navy personnel of the Napoleonic Wars Royal Navy personnel of the Egyptian–Ottoman War (1839–1841) Recipients of the Order of St. George of the Second Degree Younger sons of earls

Robert The name Robert is an ancient Germanic given name, from Proto-Germanic "fame" and "bright" (''Hrōþiberhtaz''). Compare Old Dutch ''Robrecht'' and Old High German ''Hrodebert'' (a compound of ''Hrōþ, Hruod'' ( non, Hróðr) "fame, glory ...

Commanders Cross of the Military Order of Maria Theresa Whig (British political party) MPs for English constituencies Members of the Parliament of the United Kingdom for Ipswich

Naval career

Family

See also

References