After the death of his wife in 1819 Cochrane returned to active duty in June 1820, commanding the 5th-rate Forte. He served on the North America and West Indies station until 1824 and was Governor of Newfoundland from 1825 to 1834. He then became Member of Parliament for Ipswich. In July 1841, during the First China War, he was appointed second-in-command to Sir William Parker [26] on the East India station, followed by promotion to rear-admiral of the Blue on 23 November 1841. Between 1845 and 1847 Cochrane was C-in-C, East Indies. He took personal command of operations against Borneo pirates and, in the summer of 1846, transferred his flag from the 3rd-rate Agincourt to the paddle-steamer Spiteful to lead an expedition up the Cherimon River in pursuit of the Sultan of Brunei. He was mentioned in despatches in 1845 and 1846 and was awarded the KCB in November 1847. Sir Thomas Cochrane became a vice-admiral of the Blue on 14 January 1850. From 1852 to 1855 he was C-in-C, Portsmouth, and in January 1853 married Rosetta Wheeler-Cuffe, the daughter of a baronet, with whom he went on to have a second family of two sons and two daughters. During 1854 he was responsible for fitting out ships for the Crimean War and offered to command the fleet sent to the Baltic. When Sir Charles Napier, to whom the command had been given, was recalled, Cochrane realized that whoever was appointed would be made the scapegoat for the shortcomings of Cabinet policy and did not put his name forward a second time. He was promoted to admiral of the Blue on 31 January 1856 and became an admiral of the fleet on 12 September 1865. Sir Thomas Cochrane died on 19 October 1872.
COCKBURN
Sir George, 2nd Baronet, GCB (1772–1853) [20]
George Cockburn, born in 1772, was the second son of James Cockburn (later an MP who was made a baronet for his parliamentary support to the Tories), and his wife Augusta, daughter of the Dean of Bristol. Of their children, one son became a major general, another a diplomat, and a third, the Dean of York. Cockburn entered the Navy on 12 March 1781, as captain’s servant in a frigate commanded by Captain Samuel Rowley, grandson of Sir William Rowley [6]. His first sea service was between 1786 and 1787 in the sloop Termagant, prior to sailing for the East Indies station in 1788 in the sloop Ariel He returned to the United Kingdom in 1791 and became midshipman and master’s mate, first in the 5th-rate Hebe in the Channel and then in the 4th-rate Romney, in the Mediterranean. In 1792 he became acting lieutenant in the 5th-rate Pearl and on 21 January 1793 was appointed lieutenant in the sloop Orestes.
Following the outbreak of war with Revolutionary France in February 1793 Cockburn became ninth lieutenant of the 1st-rate Britannia (flagship of the second-in-command of the Mediterranean Fleet, Vice-Admiral William Hotham). He was then appointed tenth lieutenant of the 1st-rate Victory, (flagship of his patron, Lord Hood, as C-in-C of the Mediterranean Fleet), serving off Toulon in support of the French Royalists. With his seniors rapidly selected by the C-in-C to command other ships (one of the advantages of serving in a flagship), he rose to be first lieutenant before being made commander of the sloop Speedy on 11 October 1793. Having demonstrated his seamanship in the winter blockade of Genoa, he became acting captain of the 5th-rate Inconstant on 20 January 1794, with his promotion confirmed on appointment to the 5th-rate Meleager on 10 February 1794. He commanded this ship under Hood at the British landings in Corsica in February 1795 and, under Hood’s successor, Hotham, in the battles of Leghorn (Livorno) (14 March 1795) and Toulon (13 July 1795).
Cockburn remained in the Mediterranean Fleet under Hotham’s successors, Sir Hyde Parker and Sir John Jervis [12], and served during 1796 off the coasts of Piedmont and Genoa. His immediate superior was Commodore Horatio Nelson, with whom he harried the French Army’s seaborne lines of communication in its North Italian campaign. He was mentioned in despatches for his part in cutting out transports carrying a French siege train, despite the fire of shore batteries (31 May 1796). Still penurious, but sprightly and fashionable, he became captain of the 5th-rate Minerve in August 1796 and remained in the same area, co-operating with the Austrians until their defeat by Bonaparte drove the Mediterranean Fleet from its Italian bases. Between 15 December 1796 and February 1797 Minerve wore the broad pendant of Commodore Nelson, whose own ship, the 3rd-rate Captain, was too slow for the allotted task of evacuating naval stores from Elba. On the way Minerve and her consort Blanche encountered two Spanish frigates and made a prize of one, the Santa Sabina. Nelson acknowledged Cockburn’s part in the action by presenting him with a captured gold sword. He established a firm friendship both with Cockburn and his first lieutenant, Thomas Masterman Hardy, and at one point risked the ship to prevent Hardy (who had gone in a boat to search for a man overboard) from being captured.
Proceeding to join Jervis at Lisbon Minerve found herself sailing through the Spanish fleet from Cartagena, but weather conditions allowed her to escape. At the battle of St Vincent (14 February 1797) Cockburn was the first to report the presence of the Spanish fleet. He was present throughout the subsequent engagement, where Nelson, after Captain had been crippled by his use of her as a “patent bridge for boarding first-rates” ordered Minerve to carry him to the nearest ship of the line, Irresistible, where he rehoisted his flag. On 5 November 1797, when Minerve was unable to move from the mole at Gibraltar, Cockburn put out with three gunboats (pulled by oars) and rescued a becalmed convoy from a large flotilla of Spanish gunboats. Between December 1796 and the armistice with France on 22 October 1801 Cockburn’s ship captured or destroyed the French frigates Succes and Bravoure, the corvette Etonnant, five privateers and a Danish sloop of war.
With the renewal of the war in May 1803, Cockburn was given command of the 5th-rate Phaeton. He served in the Channel, took the British Minister to the USA, carried treasure from there to British India and took part in the blockade of the Ile de France (Mauritius) in the Indian Ocean. In 1805 he returned to the United Kingdom in command of the store-ship Howe, a former East Indiaman, carrying the Governor-General of Bengal, Marquis Wellesley. Between 1806 and 1809 he commanded in succession the 3rd-rates Captain, Aboukir and Pompée, taking the last to the West Indies in 1808 where he commanded the naval operations at the British capture of Martinique in February 1809. Cockburn returned to the United Kingdom in command of the 3rd-rate Belleisle, bringing the surrendered governor, garrison and ships from Martinique, and received the thanks of Parliament. In July 1809, in the sloop Plover, he led a division of small warships in the British landings at Walcheren, where he played a significant part in negotiating the capitulation of Flushing (Vlissingen) and covered the subsequent British withdrawal at the end of August 1809. In the same year he married his cousin, Mary Cockburn. They later had one child, a daughter, who married a naval commander. During 1810 Cockburn served off the Peninsular coast in the 3rd-rate Implacable, and carried treasure to Spain from Mexico. He became a commodore, with his broad pendant in the 4th-rate Grampus, on 26 November 1811.
Cockburn was promoted to rear-admiral of the Blue on 12 August 1812 and, following the outbreak of war with the United States of America, was sent to the North American station. He arrived in Chesapeake Bay early in 1813 and immediately began a series of descents along the coasts and rivers of the surrounding area, destroying shipping, burning stores and towns, and routing their defenders. In July 1813 he shifted his flag to the 3rd-rate Sceptre and descended on the coast of North Carolina, capturing the US sloops Anaconda and Atlas. He became a rear-admiral of the White on 4 December 1813 and rear-admiral of the Red on 4 June 1814. Sir John Warren, C-in-C, North America, from early 1813 to the spring of 1814, had some sympathy for non-combatants caught up in a pointless war. Like many British officers of the time, he regarded English-speaking Americans as kith and kin, and deplored Cockburn’s incendiary activities. Warren’s replacement, Sir Alexander Cochrane, took a different view and gave orders to lay waste and destroy all United States public property that could be reached. Cockburn, with his flag in the 3rd-rate Albion, returned from Bermuda in 1814 and was given command of the Chesapeake Bay area. His continual raids brought terror to the inhab
itants of Maryland and Virginia up to ten miles inland of every coast and navigable river, with atrocity stories of arson, theft and rape making him an American hate-figure.
At the end of August 1814 Cochrane led his squadron’s boats up the Patuxent River to achieve the destruction of a flotilla of US gunboats at Pig Point, after which he joined Major General Robert Ross in the British advance to Washington. There, in revenge for the burning of York (later Toronto), Ontario, by undisciplined US troops, and irritated by vulgar American puns on his name, he played a major part in the British decision to burn the public buildings of the new capital of the USA. This led to protests from the US government that, although most of the capitals of Europe had fallen to an enemy in the previous twenty years, none had been put to the torch after occupation. The presidential residence subsequently became known as “the White House” from the wash applied to conceal the fire-damage sustained on this occasion. When the news reached London, this act of deliberate arson was condemned by the Prince Regent and others, who compared it with the burning of Ancient Rome by the Goths. By then Ross himself had fallen in the unsuccessful British attack on Baltimore, Maryland. This, the home port of numerous American privateers, withstood Cockburn’s bombardment of Fort McHenry on the night of 12 September 1814, when his “rockets’ red glare” inspired a spectator to write “The Star-Spangled Banner”, later adopted as the national anthem of the USA. Cockburn was awarded the KCB in January 1815 and was preparing for a descent on Savannah, Georgia, when the War of 1812 came to an end. Between 1796 and 1814 he was eleven times mentioned in despatches.
Sir George Cockburn returned to Portsmouth in May 1815 to find Napoleon returned from Elba and a renewal of the war with France. On 8 August 1815 he sailed with his flag in the 3rd-rate Northumberland, as C-in-C and governor of St Helena, carrying the defeated emperor into exile, and remained there until June 1816. He sat as a Tory Member of Parliament successively for Portsmouth from 1818 to 1820, for Weobley, Herefordshire, from 1820 to May 1828, and for Plymouth from June 1828 until the reform of the House of Commons in 1832. Between April 1818 and May 1827 he was a Lord Commissioner of the Admiralty in the Board headed by Viscount Melville in Lord Liverpool’s Cabinet. The Duke of Clarence [11] then became Lord High Admiral, with the Board of Admiralty reconstituted as his Council. As the senior member, Cockburn was the leading figure in the struggle to prevent Clarence from acting without his Council’s advice, culminating in Clarence’s removal from office in September 1828.
Cockburn became a vice-admiral of the Blue on 12 August 1819, vice-admiral of the White on 27 May 1825 and vice-admiral of the Red on 22 July 1830. As the senior naval lord of the Admiralty from the re-establishment of the Board in 1828, he encouraged efforts to improve the standard of gunnery in the fleet and approved the establishment of an experimental gunnery school at Portsmouth in the hulk Excellent. From December 1832 to February 1836 he was C-in-C, North America and West Indies, with his flag successively in the 4th-rates Vernon and President. Cockburn became admiral of the White on 10 January 1837. He returned to Parliament as MP for Ripley, Yorkshire, in September 1841 and was immediately re-appointed to the Admiralty as first naval lord, followed by promotion to admiral of the Red on 23 November 1841. He remained at the Admiralty, in the Board headed first by the Earl of Haddington and later by the Earl of Ellenborough, until the fall of Sir Robert Peel’s second ministry in July 1846. (Cockburn’s brother William, the Dean of York, was married to Peel’s sister Elizabeth). Cockburn then gave up public office. He became admiral of the fleet on 1 July 1851 and inherited a baronetcy from his elder brother in February 1852. He died on 19 August 1853 and was succeeded in the baronetcy by his younger brother, the Dean of York. It was Sir George Cockburn who declared that, after the introduction of steam vessels into the Navy, he never saw a clean deck nor was waited on by a captain who did not look like a sweep.
CODRINGTON
Sir Henry John, KCB (1808–1877) [35]
Henry Codrington, born on 17 October 1808, was the youngest son of the then Captain (later Admiral Sir) Edward Codrington, a veteran of Trafalgar. The oldest son, Midshipman Edward Codrington, drowned in the Mediterranean when a cutter was upset. Henry Codrington joined the Navy on 21 February 1823 as a first class volunteer in the 5th-rate Apollo at Portsmouth, from which he transferred in July 1824 to the 5th-rate Sybille at Deptford. On 24 August 1824 he was appointed midshipman in the 5th-rate Naiad, in which he served in operations against pirates off the North African coast and the blockade of their base at Algiers in the same year. From then until 1826 he served off the coast of Greece, where the Greek War of Independence from Turkish rule was in progress. After returning to the United Kingdom he was appointed in October 1826 to the 2nd-rate Asia, his father’s flagship as the newly-appointed C-in-C, Mediterranean.
In July 1827 the British, French and Russian governments agreed to use force to achieve Turkish recognition of Greek autonomy. Mehemet Ali, the Albanian ruler of Egypt, sent his own fleet to aid that of his nominal overlord, the Sultan of Turkey. They met at Navarino (Neocastro or Pilos) on the south-west coast of the Morea (Peloponnisos), and were followed there by a combined British, French and Russian fleet under Admiral Codrington’s command. In the battle of Navarino (20 October 1827), the last fleet action between wooden sailing ships, Codrington’s fleet sank sixty ships without loss, though suffering 167 killed and many wounded. Among these was Henry Codrington, who was badly wounded in the leg by a piece of iron stern rail, driven into the cabin where he was acting as signal midshipman. The Lord High Admiral, the Duke of Clarence [11] sent Admiral Codrington his congratulations, but a new Tory government, led by the Duke of Wellington, described the battle as “an untoward event” and Codrington was recalled in the summer of 1828. Clarence made haste to distribute honours after the battle, for which more were awarded than in any previous encounter in the history of the Navy. Henry Codrington received nothing from his own sovereign, but was awarded the Russian Order of St Vladimir, the French Legion of Honour and (later) the Greek Order of the Redeemer.
Codrington then served successively in the 3rd-rate Warspite and the 5th-rate Madagascar, before becoming a lieutenant on 12 June 1829. In August 1829 he joined the 1st-rate Prince Regent, flagship at the Nore, after which he was appointed to the 5th-rate Briton in April 1830. He became signal lieutenant in the 1st-rate Caledonia, his father’s flagship in the Channel, in June 1831. Codrington was promoted to commander on 20 October 1831 and given command of the sloop Orestes on 6 June 1834, in which he served in the Mediterranean until his promotion to captain on 20 January 1836. In March 1838 he was appointed captain of the 6th-rate Talbot and joined the Mediterranean Fleet at Palermo, Sicily. During 1840, Mehemet Ali, encouraged by the French, seemed likely to seize control of the whole of Asia Minor from the Sultan of Turkey. The British, Russian and Austrian governments determined to oppose him by force and the Mediterranean Fleet was sent to the coast of Syria. Its arrival off Beirut, Lebanon, as part of a combined British, Austrian and Turkish naval force, led to a general rising throughout Syria against Mehemet Ali’s oppressive rule. Acre, Palestine (Akko, Israel) was bombarded and captured on 4 October 1840, with Codrington taking part in a survey of the seaward approaches to the city during the previous night. Between March 1841 and December 1842 he was his father’s flag captain as C-in-C Portsmouth, carried successively in the 1st-rates Queen and St Vincent. In October 1846 Codrington was appointed to the 5th-rate Thetis in which he returned to the Mediterranean in 1846. There, the despotic Grand Duke of Tuscany, regarded by Italian patriots as a puppet of the Austrians, was driven from his capital by a revolutionary uprising. He took refuge with his wife, children and attendants on board Thetis before agreeing to rule as a constitutional monarch. Codrington returned home with his ship in May 1850. He had married in 1849 Helen Webb Smith, with whom he later had two daughters.
In October 1853, at a time of increasing international tension with Russia, Codrington was appointed to the 1st-rate
Royal George. After the outbreak of the Crimean War in March 1854 he was ordered to join the fleet sent to the Baltic under Admiral Sir Charles Napier. As senior officer in Napier’s fleet, he put forward ideas on which he had worked for new tactics, but was disregarded. Napier pushed his fleet hard to improve its readiness for combat, but only gained the cordial dislike of his captains. Royal George, badly rigged and poorly crewed, failed to reach the required standard and Codrington was summoned to the flagship for a reprimand. Napier’s complaints against Codrington and Captain Ryder [43] of the frigate Dauntless got as far as the Admiralty. Both officers were sufficiently well-connected to prevent any action being taken against them and eventually it was Napier himself who was recalled. Codrington took part in the Baltic operations and in February 1856 was given command of the 2nd-rate Algiers, leading a flotilla of gunboats and shallow-draught vessels intended for the capture of the Russian naval base at Kronshtadt. Russia made peace on terms favourable to the Allies in March 1856, after which Codrington saw no more active service. He was promoted to rear-admiral on 19 March 1857 and was Admiral Superintendent of Malta Dockyard from 1858 to 1863. He became vice-admiral on 24 September 1864. In 1865 he divorced his wife, but, as the innocent party, continued to be received in polite society and was awarded the KCB in March 1867. Sir Henry Codrington was promoted to admiral on 18 October 1867 and was C-in-C, Plymouth, from 1869 to 1872. In 1869 he married Catherine Aitchison, the widow of another admiral, and later had with her a daughter. He was promoted to admiral of the fleet on 22 January 1877 and died on 4 August 1877.
British Admirals of the Fleet Page 9