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 rega ...

Frederick Paul Irby (18 April 1779 – 24 April 1844) was a British

Royal Navy The Royal Navy (RN) is the United Kingdom's naval warfare force. Although warships were used by Kingdom of England, English and Kingdom of Scotland, Scottish kings from the early medieval period, the first major maritime engagements were foug ...

officer and Deputy Lord Lieutenant of

Norfolk Norfolk () is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in East Anglia in England. It borders Lincolnshire to the north-west, Cambridgeshire to the west and south-west, and Suffolk to the south. Its northern and eastern boundaries are the Nort ...

Birth

Frederick Irby was born on 18 April 1779, the second son of Frederick, 2nd Baron Boston and his wife Christian (née Methuen).

Early Royal Naval career

He entered the Royal Navy on 2 January 1791, serving on the

Home A home, or domicile, is a space used as a permanent or semi-permanent residence for one or many humans, and sometimes various companion animals. It is a fully or semi sheltered space and can have both interior and exterior aspects to it ...

and

North America and West Indies Station The North America and West Indies Station was a formation or command of the United Kingdom's Royal Navy stationed in North American waters from 1745 to 1956. The North American Station was separate from the Jamaica Station until 1830 when th ...

s. As a

midshipman A midshipman is an officer of the lowest rank, in the Royal Navy, United States Navy, and many Commonwealth navies. Commonwealth countries which use the rank include Canada (Naval Cadet), Australia, Bangladesh, Namibia, New Zealand, South Af ...

in HMS ''Montagu'' he was present at 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. On 6 June 1797 he was promoted lieutenant and appointed to HMS ''Circe'', in which he was present at the

Battle of Camperdown The Battle of Camperdown (known in Dutch as the ''Zeeslag bij Kamperduin'') was a major naval action fought on 11 October 1797, between the British North Sea Fleet under Admiral Adam Duncan and a Batavian Navy (Dutch) fleet under Vice-Admira ...

.''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'', Volume 29, pp 327–328, Oxford University Press, 2004. He was wrecked off the

Texel Texel (; Texels dialect: ) is a municipality and an island with a population of 13,643 in North Holland, Netherlands. It is the largest and most populated island of the West Frisian Islands in the Wadden Sea. The island is situated north of ...

in HMS ''Apollo'' on 7 January 1799. Promoted to

commander Commander (commonly abbreviated as Cmdr.) is a common naval officer rank. Commander is also used as a rank or title in other formal organizations, including several police forces. In several countries this naval rank is termed frigate captain ...

on 22 April 1800, he became the captain of HMS ''Volcano'', a

bomb vessel A bomb vessel, bomb ship, bomb ketch, or simply bomb was a type of wooden sailing naval ship. Its primary armament was not cannons (long guns or carronades) – although bomb vessels carried a few cannons for self-defence – but mortars moun ...

, moving in 1801 to HMS ''Jalouse'' operating in the

North Sea The North Sea lies between Great Britain, Norway, Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium. An epeiric sea on the European continental shelf, it connects to the Atlantic Ocean through the English Channel in the south and the Norwegian S ...

. ''Jalouse'', while under his command, was instrumental in saving when she was driven ashore on the coast of Holland. Irby's youngest brother, Charles Leonard Irby, was a midshipman on board ''Narcissus'', having joined her on 23 May.Marshall (1832), Vol. 3, Part 2, p.1.

Post captain

Promoted

post-captain Post-captain is an obsolete alternative form of the rank of captain in the Royal Navy. The term served to distinguish those who were captains by rank from: * Officers in command of a naval vessel, who were (and still are) addressed as captain ...

on 14 April 1802, he appears to have been placed on half pay. He married Emily Ives Drake, sister of Lady Boston (and hence his sister-in-law), on 1 December 1803. He was appointed in command of a unit of the

Sea Fencibles The Sea Fencibles were naval fencible (a shortening of ''defencible'') units established to provide a close-in line of defence and obstruct the operation of enemy shipping, principally during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. The e ...

in the

Essex Essex () is a county in the East of England. One of the home counties, it borders Suffolk and Cambridgeshire to the north, the North Sea to the east, Hertfordshire to the west, Kent across the estuary of the River Thames to the south, and G ...

District in 1805, and on 7 August 1807 his wife died giving birth to a son. He returned to sea to command HMS ''Amelia'' in December 1807, serving under Rear Admiral Stopford on the

Home Station The Home Fleet was a fleet of the Royal Navy that operated from the United Kingdom's territorial waters from 1902 with intervals until 1967. In 1967, it was merged with the Mediterranean Fleet creating the new Western Fleet. Before the First W ...

. On 24 February 1809 he took part in the

Battle of Les Sables-d'Olonne The Battle of Les Sables-d'Olonne was a minor naval battle fought on 23 February 1809 off the town of Les Sables-d'Olonne on the Biscay Coast of France between a French Navy squadron of three frigates and a larger British squadron of ship of the ...

, which drove three large French frigates aground and destroyed them, gaining the special approval of the Admiralty. In 1811, in company with HMS ''Berwick'' and HMS ''Niobe'', he destroyed the French frigate ''Amazone'' near

Barfleur Barfleur () is a commune and fishing village in Manche, Normandy, northwestern France. History During the Middle Ages, Barfleur was one of the chief ports of embarkation for England. * 1066: A large medallion fixed to a rock in the har ...

. He became the senior officer on the

West Africa Squadron The West Africa Squadron, also known as the Preventative Squadron, was a squadron of the British Royal Navy whose goal was to suppress the Atlantic slave trade by patrolling the coast of West Africa. Formed in 1808 after the British Parliame ...

later in 1811. The

Action of 7 February 1813 During the night of 7 February 1813, two evenly matched frigates from the French Navy and the British Royal Navy, '' Aréthuse'' and , engaged in a battle in the Atlantic Ocean at the Îles de Los, off Guinea. The action lasted four hours, causi ...

between ''Amelia'' and the French frigate ''Aréthuse'' ended his naval career. Captain Irby was seriously wounded and after 1813 he saw no further active service. The seventh report (1813) of the

African Institution The African Institution was founded in 1807 after British abolitionists succeeded in ending the slave trade based in the United Kingdom. The Institution was formed to succeed where the former Sierra Leone Company had failed—to create a viab ...

expressed the organization's gratitude for Irby's efforts in reducing the slave trade.

Later life

He settled in

, at Boyland Hall, near

Norwich Norwich () is a cathedral city and district of Norfolk, England, of which it is the county town. Norwich is by the River Wensum, about north-east of London, north of Ipswich and east of Peterborough. As the seat of the Episcopal see, See of ...

, and on 23 January 1816 he married his second wife, Frances Wright. They had three sons and four daughters, including Leonard Howard Lloyd Irby, a famous

ornithologist Ornithology is a branch of zoology that concerns the "methodological study and consequent knowledge of birds with all that relates to them." Several aspects of ornithology differ from related disciplines, due partly to the high visibility and th ...

, and

Paulina Irby Paulina or Paullina (, ) was a name shared by three relatives of the Roman Emperor Hadrian: his mother, his elder sister and his niece. Mother of Hadrian Domitia Paulina or Paullina, Domitia Paulina Major or Paulina Major, (''Major'' Latin fo ...

, a revered hero of

Bosnia Bosnia and Herzegovina ( sh, / , ), abbreviated BiH () or B&H, sometimes called Bosnia–Herzegovina and often known informally as Bosnia, is a country at the crossroads of south and southeast Europe, located in the Balkans. Bosnia and H ...

. In 1831 he was appointed Companion of the Order of the Bath (CB) and in 1837 promoted to

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 rega ...

. He served as a

Magistrate The term magistrate is used in a variety of systems of governments and laws to refer to a civilian officer who administers the law. In ancient Rome, a ''magistratus'' was one of the highest ranking government officers, and possessed both judici ...

and Deputy Lord Lieutenant of Norfolk, and died on 24 April 1844 aged 65.

Notes

References

* * Attribution: * {{DEFAULTSORT:Irby, Frederick Paul 1779 births 1844 deaths Royal Navy rear admirals People from Morningthorpe Royal Navy personnel of the French Revolutionary Wars Royal Navy personnel of the Napoleonic Wars Companions of the Order of the Bath Deputy Lieutenants of Norfolk Officers of the West Africa Squadron Younger sons of barons