A Naval Biographical Dictionary/Kennicott, Gilbert
KENNICOTT. (Commander, 1846. f-p., 24; h-p., 20.)
Gilbert Kennicott was born in 1789.
This officer entered the Navy, 26 July, 1803, as Fst.-cl. Vol., on board the Venerable 74, Capt. Geo. Reynolds, bearing the flag in the Channel of his friend and patron the late Lord Collingwood, whom he successively followed, as Midshipman, into the Culloden 74, Prince 98, Venerable again, Dreadnought 98, Royal Sovereign 100, and Ocean 98. In the Royal Sovereign at Trafalgar he received nearly 40 wounds and lost the sight of his right eye;[1] in consequence whereof he was allowed a pension of 10l. so long as he should continue a petty officer, and was presented by the Patriotic Society with the sum of 50l. In Oct. 1807, a few months after he had been appointed Master’s Mate of the Hind frigate, Capt. Fras. Wm. Fane, Mr. Kennicott had the misfortune, while in charge of a small detained Greek vessel, to be wrecked off the island of Cyprus. He fell in consequence into the hands of the Turks, and was by them held a prisoner until late in 1809. He then joined the Seahorse 38, Capt. John Stewart, and, on 28 Jan. 1810, he was nominated by Lord Collingwood to a Lieutenancy in his ovrn ship, the Ville de Paris – an act which the Admiralty confirmed by commission dated 22 Aug. in the same year. Removing, not long afterwards, to the Minorca 18, Capt. Ralph Randolph Wormeley, Lieut. Kennicott, in Nov. 1810, was again placed in command of a detained (American) vessel, whose crew, of themselves equal in number to the British, conjoined with one-half of the latter, and succeeded in re-capturing and carrying her into Marseilles. A second time thus a prisoner-of-war, the Lieutenant, after he had been for some time confined in a common gaol, was conducted to Verdun, and there kept en parole until the conclusion of the war. His next appointments were, in April and Sept. 1815, to the Mosquito 18, Capts. Jas. Tomkinson and Geo. Brine, and Leveret 10, Capt. John Theed; in the latter of which vessels he remained on the St. Helena station until obliged to invalid, for the benefit of his health, 3 June, 1817. From 17 Sept. 1836, until advanced to the rank of Commander 9 Nov. 1846, he was employed in the Coast Guard, and on more than one occasion rendered good service to the revenue. He is now on half-pay.
Commander Kennicott was re-awarded, 20 Sept. 1817, a pension for his wounds of 91l. 5s., together with two years’ arrears. He is married, and has issue two daughters, one of whom, Sophia Elizabeth, became the wife, in Nov. 1841, of Capt. W. Calder, late of the 8th Regt. Agent – Joseph Woodhead.
- ↑ Vide Gaz. 1805, pp. 1411-1484.