A Naval Biographical Dictionary/Head, Richard John
HEAD. (Commander, 1819. f-p., 22; h-p., 25.)
Richard John Head was born at Helston, co. Cornwall.
This officer entered the Navy, 20 May, 1800, as a Volunteer, on board the Conquest gun-brig, Lieut.-Commander Green, attached to the force in the Channel, where, on his removal to the Pelican 18, Capt. John Thicknesse, he was in the following winter cast away. He then, until the peace of Amiens, served on board the Hercule 74, Capt. Wm. Luke; on leaving which ship he successively joined the Childers and Dasher sloops, both commanded by Capt. J. Delafons; whom, in the latter vessel, he accompanied to the East Indies. Being there confirmed, 12 June, 1807, a Lieutenant (after having acted as such for a period of nine months) in the Sir Francis Drake 32, Capt. Hon. Pownoll Bastard Pellew, he had the misfortune, during a continuance of three years in that ship, to be twice severely wounded, once at the destruction of six pirate vessels in the straits of Malacca, and again when beating off an attack made by the French frigate Piedmontaise on the Sir Francis Drake and a convoy of Chinamen. Returning to England in 1810, Mr. Head was next, until Aug. 1814, employed, on the Channel, Baltic, and Mediterranean stations, in the Dreadnought 98, Capt. Sam. Hood Linzee, and Venerable, Mars, and Pembroke 74’s, Capts. Sir Home Popham, Hen. Raper, and Jas. Brisbane. While in the last-mentioned ship he participated, 5 Nov. 1813, in a partial action with the Toulon fleet, and in the course of the following April, besides commanding the boats at the capture of a large convoy under the guns of Porto Maurizio, served at the reduction of Genoa and the taking of Corsica. From Sept. 1814, until his promotion to the rank of Commander 15 May, 1819, he was employed in the Queen and Albion 74’s, chiefly as Flag-Lieutenant to Sir Chas. Vinicombe Penrose, by whom he was sent on a secret service to Rome, whence he brought away and delivered to the British Government all the valuable papers of the Cardinal de York, the last of the Stuart family. Commander Head’s only other appointment was to the Coast Guard, in which service he continued from 1824 to 1827. On his retirement he was entertained at a dinner given to him by the officers of his district, who at the same time presented him with a snuff-box, of heart of oak, manufactured from a beam of St. Mawe’s Castle, of 200 years standing, suitably ornamented, with an inscription commemorative of their feelings of respect and attachment to him.
He married, 16 Oct. 1832, Sarah Vigurs, daughter of the Rev. F. L. Bluett, Vicar of Mullion, by whom he has issue three sons.