A Naval Biographical Dictionary/Lavington, Thomas
LAVINGTON. (Lieutenant, 1827.)
Thomas Lavington entered the Navy, 31 Jan. 1812, as Fst.-cl. Vol., on board the Royal Sovereign 100, Capt. Wm. Bedford, employed in blockading Basque Roads and Brest. Removing as Midshipman, in Nov. 1813, to the Melpomène troop-ship, Capt. Robt. Rowley, he proceeded to North America, where he commanded a boat up the Patuxent at the destruction of Commodore Barney’s flotilla, was present at the capture of Washington, served on shore in the attack upon Baltimore, and had charge of one of the boats of a squadron at the capture, 14 Dec. 1814, on Lake Borgne, of five American gun-boats under Commodore Jones, which did not surrender until the British, after a fierce contest, had been occasioned a loss of 17 men killed and 77 wounded. During the first three years of the general peace Mr. Lavington was stationed in South America on board the Hyacinth 20, Capt. Alex. Ronton Sharpe. He then, in Oct. 1818, passed his examination, and between that period and 1822 became in succession attached to the Severn Coast-Blockade ship, Capt. Wm. M‘Culloch, and Queen Charlotte 100, and Victory 104, commanded at Portsmouth by Capts. John Baker Hay and Chas. Inglis. On leaving the latter ship, he proceeded, as Admiralty Midshipman of the Driver sloop, Capt. Thos. Wolrige, to the coast of Africa, but, being soon compelled to invalid; he next, in 1823, joined, in a similar capacity, the Naiad 46, Capt. Hon. Robt. Cavendish Spencer, and sailed for the Mediterranean. Arrived on that station, he contributed, 31 Jan. 1824, to the complete defeat of the Tripoli Algerine corvette of 18 guns and 100 men; and on the night of 23 May following, he aided in the boats under Lieut. Michael Quin at the valiant destruction of a 16-gun brig moored in a position of extraordinary strength alongside the walls of the fortress of Bona, in which was a garrison of 400 soldiers, who, from cannon and musket, kept up a tremendous fire almost perpendicularly on the deck. We subsequently find him ordered to the East Indies in the Warspite 76, in which ship, bearing the flag at first of Rear-Admiral Wm. Hall Gage, he ultimately returned to the Mediterranean, where, after the battle of Navarin, he was promoted from the Asia 84, bearing the flag of Sir Edw. Codrington, to a death-vacancy in the Rose 18, Capt. Hon. Wm. Wellesley. His commission bears date 17 Dec. 1827. He returned to England in 1828; and with the exception of a period of nearly three years, between 1835 and 1838, has been in the Coast Guard since 1 Dec. 1829.
Lieut. Lavington married, 25 May, 1830, Anne, eldest daughter of Wm. Ferris, Esq., of Lymington, Hants, by whom he has issue six children.