Vice Admiral Vice admiral is a senior naval flag officer rank, usually equivalent to lieutenant general and air marshal. A vice admiral is typically senior to a rear admiral and junior to an admiral. Australia In the Royal Australian Navy, the rank of Vice ...

Sir Richard King, 2nd Baronet KCB (28 November 1774 – 5 August 1834) was an officer in the

Royal Navy The Royal Navy (RN) is the naval warfare force of the United Kingdom. It is a component of His Majesty's Naval Service, and its officers hold their commissions from the King of the United Kingdom, King. Although warships were used by Kingdom ...

during the French Revolutionary and

Napoleonic Wars {{Infobox military conflict , conflict = Napoleonic Wars , partof = the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars , image = Napoleonic Wars (revision).jpg , caption = Left to right, top to bottom:Battl ...

, who fought with distinction at the

battle of Trafalgar The Battle of Trafalgar was a naval engagement that took place on 21 October 1805 between the Royal Navy and a combined fleet of the French Navy, French and Spanish Navy, Spanish navies during the War of the Third Coalition. As part of Na ...

despite being amongst the youngest captains present.

Naval career

King was the son of

Sir Richard King, 1st Baronet Admiral Sir Richard King, 1st Baronet (10 August 1730 – 7 November 1806) was a British naval officer and colonial governor. Naval career King was born in Gosport, the son of Curtis King and Mary Barnett. He joined the Royal Navy in 1738 and ...

, a wealthy and high-ranking member of the Navy. King was placed on board ship at fourteen, thanks to the influence of his father and made

Post Captain Post-captain or post captain is an obsolete alternative form of the rank of captain in the Royal Navy. The term "post-captain" was descriptive only; it was never used as a title in the form "Post-Captain John Smith". The term served to di ...

just six years later, an achievement made possible by his father's rank of admiral. Normally an officer would be waiting double or triple that time before gaining such a prestigious rank. Nonetheless, King was no incompetent, and proved his worth as captain of HMS ''Sirius'', capturing four enemy privateers whilst in command, as well as sitting on the navy board which condemned Richard Parker to death for his part in the

Nore mutiny The Spithead and Nore mutinies were two major mutinies by sailors of the Royal Navy in 1797. They were the first in an increasing series of outbreaks of maritime radicalism in the Atlantic World. Despite their temporal proximity, the mutinies d ...

in 1797. At the action of 24 October 1798, King captured two

Batavian Navy The Batavian Navy () was the navy of the Batavian Republic which existed from 1795 to 1806. Founded in May 1795 after the Dutch Republic was Low Countries theatre of the War of the First Coalition, overrun by France during the French Revolutionar ...

ships. In 1801 he captured a French

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

, and was rewarded with command of the large 74 gun

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 tactics in the Age of Sail, naval tactic known as the line of battl ...

HMS ''Achille''. A month before the battle of Trafalgar, sensing that there was glory to be won in the coming operations off Cadiz, King used his influence with his father in law, Admiral Sir John Duckworth, to persuade

Nelson Nelson may refer to: Arts and entertainment * ''Nelson'' (1918 film), a historical film directed by Maurice Elvey * ''Nelson'' (1926 film), a historical film directed by Walter Summers * ''Nelson'' (opera), an opera by Lennox Berkeley to a lib ...

to give him a position in the blockading fleet. Since his reputation was good, Nelson endorsed the move and King joined just in time to catch the combined fleet off Trafalgar on 21 October 1805.Sir Richard King at Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
/ref> The seventh ship in Collingwood's division, ''Achille'' was heavily engaged, chasing off the Spanish ''Montañés'' and the battling alongside HMS ''Belleisle'' with the ''Argonauta''. Whilst chasing this ship through the melee, ''Achille'' was cut off by her namesake, the French ''Achille'', with whom she began a savage cannonade until joined by the French ship , whom ''Achille'' turned her attention on. An hour of savage fighting forced the French craft to eventually surrender, but at the cost of 13 dead and 59 wounded, severe losses in comparison with most of the British fleet. King was, along with the other captains, voted many honours following the battle, and unlike several of his compatriots retained his command at sea, being engaged the following year in the action against a French frigate squadron in an action in which

Sir Samuel Hood Admiral Samuel Hood, 1st Viscount Hood (12 December 1724 – 27 January 1816) was a Royal Navy officer and politician. As a junior officer he saw action during the War of the Austrian Succession. While in temporary command of , Hood drove a Fre ...

lost an arm. The same year he inherited his father's

baronet A baronet ( or ; abbreviated Bart or Bt) or the female equivalent, a baronetess (, , or ; abbreviation Btss), is the holder of a baronetcy, a hereditary title awarded by the British Crown. The title of baronet is mentioned as early as the 14th ...

cy and transferred to 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 east by the Levant in West Asia, on the north by Anatolia in West Asia and Southern ...

, where in 1812 he made the jump to Rear-Admiral and second in command to

Edward Pellew Admiral Edward Pellew, 1st Viscount Exmouth, GCB (19 April 1757 – 23 January 1833) was a Royal Navy officer and politician. He fought during the American War of Independence, the French Revolutionary Wars, and the Napoleonic Wars. His younge ...

. He was appointed KCB on 2 January 1815 and served as commander-in-chief on the

East Indies Station The East Indies Station was a formation and command of the British Royal Navy. Created in 1744 by the Admiralty, it was under the command of the Commander-in-Chief, East Indies. Even in official documents, the term ''East Indies Station'' wa ...

from 1816. Continuing in service postwar in 1819 as a Vice-Admiral and

Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath The Most Honourable Order of the Bath is a British order of chivalry founded by King George I of Great Britain, George I on 18 May 1725. Recipients of the Order are usually senior British Armed Forces, military officers or senior Civil Service ...

, King served as commander in chief in the East Indies. As

Commander-in-Chief, The Nore The Commander-in-Chief, The Nore, was an operational commander of the Royal Navy. His subordinate units, establishments, and staff were sometimes informally known as the Nore Station or Nore Command. Nore, The Nore is a sandbank at the mouth of t ...

from 1833 King continued his successful career past the age at which many of his contemporaries retired. He died in office in 1834 whilst at

Sheerness Sheerness () is a port town and civil parish beside the mouth of the River Medway on the north-west corner of the Isle of Sheppey in north Kent, England. With a population of 13,249, it is the second largest town on the island after the nearby ...

from a sudden outbreak of

cholera Cholera () is an infection of the small intestine by some Strain (biology), strains of the Bacteria, bacterium ''Vibrio cholerae''. Symptoms may range from none, to mild, to severe. The classic symptom is large amounts of watery diarrhea last ...

. He was buried nearby,All Saints’ Church, Eastchurch, Isle of Sheppey
survived by twelve children and his second wife.

Private life

King's first wife was Sarah Anne Duckworth, daughter of Admiral

Sir John Duckworth, 1st Baronet Admiral Sir John Thomas Duckworth, 1st Baronet, GCB (9 February 1748 – 31 August 1817) was an English Royal Navy officer, colonial administrator and politician who served in the Seven Years' War, American War of Independence, French Revolutio ...

, GCB. They had 4 sons and a daughter. The sons included his first son and heir Sir Richard Duckworth King, 3rd Baronet and his second son vice-admiral Sir George St Vincent King (later Duckworth-King), who succeeded his elder brother as 4th baronet. His second wife was Maria Susannah, the daughter of Admiral Sir Charles Cotton, 5th Baronet, with whom he had a further 4 sons and 3 daughters.

References

External links

Richard King bioAnimation of the Battle of Trafalgar
, - , - {{DEFAULTSORT:King, Richard 1774 births 1834 deaths Baronets in the Baronetage of Great Britain Knights Commander of the Order of the Bath Royal Navy vice admirals Royal Navy captains at the Battle of Trafalgar Royal Navy personnel of the French Revolutionary Wars Royal Navy personnel of the Napoleonic Wars Military personnel from Dorset Deaths from cholera in the United Kingdom Infectious disease deaths in England

Naval career

Private life

Further reading

References

External links