A Naval Biographical Dictionary/Geary, John
GEARY. (Commander, 1831. f-p., 18; h-p., 32.)
John Geary, born 8 Sept. 1787, at St. Margaret’s, co. Kent, is member of a family eminently naval, enumerating amongst its ancestral connexions the late Admiral Fras. Geary, the celebrated Capt. Percy, who flourished in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, and also Sir Cloudesley Shovel. His three brothers, Wm. Charles, Fras. Daniel, and Joseph Vincent, all died Lieutenants in the Navy; as did his maternal uncles, John and Nicholas Tucker, the latter of whom had been for 18 years attached to the Military Department of Greenwich Hospital.
This officer entered the Navy, 24 Dec. 1797, as Fst.-cl. Vol., on board the Scorpion 16, Capts. Horace Pine and John Tremayne Rodd, on the Home station, where he assisted at the capture of a Dutch brig-of-war of equal force, and served until April, 1802, latterly as Midshipman, in the Camperdown prison-ship, Lieut.-Commander M‘Gee, and Ruby and Texel 64’s, Capts. Alan Gardner, Rich. Incledon, and Henry Garrett. In 1804-5 we find him employed in the East Indies on board the Trident 64, flag-ship of Vice-Admiral Peter Rainier, and Centurion 50, Capt. John Sprat Rainier; after which, on joining the Revenge 74, Capt. Robt. Moorsom, he took part and was wounded in the battle of Trafalgar, as Master’s Mate of the Monarch 74, Capt. Rich. Lee (to which ship he had been transferred from the Resolution 74, Capt. Geo. Burlton). Mr. Geary was again wounded, while serving with a detachment of boats at the capture, 15 July, 1806, in face of a desperate and well-concerted resistance, at the entrance of the river Gironde, of the French corvette Le César, mounting 16 guns, with a complement of 86 men, who, with a loss to themselves of 14 killed and wounded, occasioned the British one altogether of 9 killed and 39 wounded. On 25 Sept. following he appears to have been a third time wounded at the capture, by a squadron under Sir Sam. Hood, of four heavy French frigates, off Rochefort; on which occasion the Monarch enacted a very conspicuous part, compelled La Minerve, of 44 guns and 650 men, to surrender, and experienced a total loss of 4 killed and 25 wounded.[1] Mr. Geary, who was promoted to a Lieutenancy, 29 May, 1810, in the Champion 24, Capts. Kenneth Mackenzie, Jas. Coutts Crawford, and Robt. Henderson, and who, while in that vessel, escorted Admiral Seniavin and the men of his fleet to Russia, afterwards commanded the Shade gun-brig, and Mullet schooner, on the river Elbe and in the Channel, from June to Nov. 1810. He then, until paid off, 24 Aug. 1815, became successively attached, nearly the whole time as Senior-Lieutenant, to the Neptune 98, Capt. Volant Vashon Ballard, Audacious 74, Capt. Donald Campbell, Thracian 13, Capts. Henry Hart, Joseph Symes, and John Carter, and Tigris 36, Capt. Robt. Henderson. Previously to joining the latter frigate he had had his right leg dreadfully fractured while in command, in July, 1813, of No. 1 gun-boat on the river Elbe, where he had been endeavouring with the boats of a squadron to get off a vessel which had been run on shore by the enemy. From 15 April, 1818, Mr. Geary next, until Oct. 1819, officiated as First-Lieutenant, on the Home and East India stations, of the Phaeton 46, Capt. Wm. Henry Dillon; in which capacity he joined, in Sept. 1828, the Madagascar 46, Capt. Hon. Sir Robt. Cavendish Spencer. On the death of that gallant officer he became Acting-Captain of the ship, and for his great exertions in subsequently saving part of H.M. 90th Regt., who had been wrecked in the Countess of Harcourt on the coast of Sicily, was honoured with the thanks of the Governor, Sir F. Ponsonby. He was advanced to his present rank 17 Feb. 1831, but did not leave the Madagascar until the following April; since which period he has not been employed.
Commander Geary, who for the two first wounds he received during the war was at the time rewarded by the Patriotic Society, stands at the head of the list of Commanders of 1831. During the term of his official servitude he had the good fortune on different occasions to save the lives of three persons who had fallen into the sea by jumping overboard after them; and he has since commanded several East Indiamen and private steamships. He married, 29 March, 1808, Catherine, second daughter of the late Jas, M‘Arthur, Esq., of Stoke Damerel, co. Devon, and sister of Capt. John M‘Arthur, R.M., Governor of Port Essington, N.S. Wales, of Lieut. Jas. Earle M‘Arthur, of H.M. 14th Regt., and of Hanibal Hawkins M‘Arthur, Esq., of Vineyard, Sydney, Member of Council in the government at that place. He has had issue ten children, of whom the second son, Wm. Chas., is a Lieut. R.N. Agents – Hallett and Robinson.
- ↑ Vide Gaz. 1806, p. 1306.