A Naval Biographical Dictionary/Delafosse, Edward Hollingworth
DELAFOSSE. (Commander, 1816. h-p., 18; h-p., 28.)
Edward Hollingworth Delafosse was born 8 Nov. 1788.
This officer entered the Navy, 2 March, 1801 (under the auspices of H.R.H. the Duke of Clarence), as Fst.-cl. Vol., on board the Cruizer 18, Capt. Jas. Brisbane; and, after sharing in the battle of Copenhagen 2 April, 1801, proceeded with that officer to the West Indies, as Midshipman of the Saturn 74, flag-ship of Rear-Admiral Thos. Totty, who shortly afterwards died on board. In Nov. 1802, he joined the Africaine 38, Capt. Thos. Manby, in the North Sea; and on proceeding to the East Indies in 1805 on board the Greyhound 32, Capt. Hon. Chas. Elphinstone, became attached to the Blenheim 74, bearing the flag of Sir Thos. Troubridge; from which ship, after she took the ground, and was nearly lost, at the entrance of the Straits of Malacca, he removed, 9 June, 1806, to the Fox 32, Capt. Hon. Arch. Cochrane. On his return home in Aug. 1807, as Master’s Mate of the Concorde 36, Capt. John Cramer (previously to which he had cruized for three months with Capt. Wm. Aug. Montagu in the Dasher sloop), Mr. Delafosse joined the York 74, Capt. Robt. Barton; of which ship, after witnessing the surrender of Madeira, he was created a Lieutenant 9 April, 1808. In the course of 1809 he further beheld the reduction of Martinique and the Saintes, the capture of the French 74-guu ship D’Haupoult, and the siege of Flushing. He subsequently sailed for the Mediterranean, where, in Feb. 1811, he exchanged into the Cerberus 32, Capts. Henry Whitby and Thos. Garth. In Jan. 1813, as First-Lieutenant of the latter frigate, Mr. Delafosse commanded her boats at the capture of an armed and deeply-laden trabacocolo. He also, in the following March, cut out another vessel of the same description under a battery near Brindisi, and assisted in dismantling a tower and destroying a battery and several vessels in a creek between the towns of Bari and St. Vito; after which he took temporary possession, 11 April, 1813, of Devil’s Island, near the north entrance of Corfu – was wounded, on 14 of the same month, in another boat affair at the island of Melera[1] – and actively co-operated in the proximate reduction of Trieste. We subsequently find him appointed Senior-Lieutenant, 18 May, 1815, of the Wye 24, flag-ship on the Jersey and Guernsey station of Sir Thos. Fras. Fremantle – and, 20 Jan. and 11 April, 1816, of the Dover troop-ship, Capt. Robt. Henly Rogers, and Hebrus 36, Capt. Edm. Palmer. For his services at the ensuing bombardment of Algiers, Mr. Delafosse was rewarded with the rank of Commander 16 Sept. 1816. He was afterwards employed in the Coast Guard in Dorsetshire, from 1828 to 1831; and on 3 Jan. in the latter year he received the thanks of the magistrates at Christchurch for his distinguished zeal and alacrity in suppressing various incendiary disturbances in the county of Hants. Since 1831 he has not been employed.
Commander Delafosse had a gratuity of 50l. from the Patriotic Fund. He married, 12 Aug. 1820, Sophia, daughter of the Rev. Geo. Chilton Lambton Young, of Iver, Bucks. Agent – J. Chippendale.
- ↑ Vide Gaz. 1813, pp. 1308, 1486.