A Naval Biographical Dictionary/Lowcay, Henry
LOWCAY. (Commander, 1813. f-p., 22; h-p., 34.)
Henry Lowcay is son of Mr. Henry Lowcay, a veteran warrant-officer, who was Master’s Mate of the Swallow sloop of war in a voyage of discovery to the South Seas in 1766-9, and died 5 Feb. 1827, at Portsmouth, aged 87; and brother of Retired Commander William, and Lieut. Robt. Lowcay, R.N. He had three other brothers, one of whom died a Lieutenant R.N.; a second, a First-Lieutenant R.M., from the effects of fever caught at the Brazils; and the third, from the sufferings he had endured when cast away, as Midshipman, on the coast of Africa.
This officer entered the Navy, 2 April, 1791, as Midshipman, on board the Duke 98, Capts. Robt. Kingsmill, Robt. Calder, and John Knight, flagship for some time of Admirals Roddam and Lord Hood in the Channel. Removing, in Aug. 1792, to the Juno,32, Capt. Sam. Hood, he assisted at the commencement of the war at the capture of many of the enemy’s vessels, and was on board that frigate in Jan. 1794, when she effected an extraordinary escape from the inner harbour of Toulon, into which she had entered in ignorance of the previous evacuation of the British. After witnessing the surrender of the tower of Mortella and the capture of Fornelli, in the island of Corsica, he followed Capt. Hood, in March, 1794, into L’Aigle 36, and in the course of the same year was present at the sieges of Bastia and Calvi. When next with the same Captain, in the Zealous 74, Mr. Lowcay united in Nelson’s attack upon Santa Cruz, TenerifFe, 24 July, 1797. At the commencement of the operations he took voluntary command of a boat, but had not been long in her before she was sunk, and had 1 of her men killed, by the enemy’s shot. In consequence of this disaster he was obliged to swim on shore under a tremendous fire of round, grape, and musketry, and through a very high surf. On landing he joined Capt. Hood, and continued by him as his Aide-de-Camp during the remainder of the proceedings. In Dec. 1797, a few weeks after his removal to the Ville de Paris 110, flag-ship of Earl St. Vincent, he was nominated Acting-Lieutenant of the Culloden 74, Capt. Thos. Troubridge, then off Cadiz, where, while engaged one night in rowing guard, he pursued, and, notwithstanding some resistance, captured an armed brig. On 1 Aug. 1798 it was Mr. Lowcay’s fortune to be present at the battle of the Nile; subsequently to which we find him making prize, with the ship’s boats under his orders, of a vast number of laden market-boats between Alexandria and Rosetta, and at the same time intercepting a large quantity of church-plate taken at Malta. Being confirmed a Lieutenant of the Culloden by commission dated 7 Jan. 1799, he officiated in the course of that year as Aide-de-Camp to Capt. Troubridge, and gained great praise for his meritorious conduct, at the sieges of St. Elmo and Capua, and in the various operations which terminated with the expulsion of the French from the Roman territory.[1] He was then sent in an open country boat from Naples to Palermo with despatches for Lord Nelson, and in charge of all the colours that had been taken from the enemy. The latter his Lordship deputed him to present to the Sicilian King, who in return gave him a valuable diamond ring, and made him the bearer of another, as also of a snuff-box, for Capt. Troubridge. After passing a fortnight as a guest at Lord Nelson’s house, Lieut. Lowcay went back to the Culloden; prior to the return of which ship to England in the summer of 1800 he came into further boat-contact with the enemy in the vicinity of Cadiz, and saw good service along the Egyptian and Italian shores. With the exception of a few months in 1802-3, during which he served on board the Pique 36, Capt. Wm. Cumberland, he presents himself to our notice as attached, between Sept. 1800 and Feb. 1806, to the Prince of Wales 98, bearing the flag of Sir Robt. Calder, under whom he shared in the action off Cape Finisterre 22 July, 1805. He then performed the duties of Flag-Lieutenant for upwards of two years to the late Sir Geo. Martin, in the Gladiator, Montagu, Queen, and Canopus, on the Portsmouth and Mediterranean stations. In the summer of 1808, having returned to England in the Bittern sloop, Capt. Thos. Ussher, he obtained an appointment to the Sea Fencibles in the river Medway; where he remained until ordered, in June, 1809, to join the Namur 74, Capt, Rich. Jones, part of the force employed in the ensuing expedition to the Scheldt. In June, 1810, he was again (in the Salvador del Mundo) placed under the orders of Sir Robt. Calder, then Commander-in-Chief at Plymouth, who successively invested him, 9 Nov. 1812, and 20 Jan. and 29 March, 1813, with the charge of the Favorite, Sealark, and Achates sloops. In the first-mentioned of those vessels he retook a West Indiaman that had been only the night before captured by a French frigate; and conducted safely info Bristol and Liverpool a convoy for which he had been sent to cruize between the 44th and 47th degrees of West longitude. He was confirmed in his present rank on the occasion of Sir Robt. Calder hauling down his flag 29 Oct. 1813; and has since been on half-pay.
During his career afloat Commander Lowcay was at times employed at the blockade of Brest, Rochefort, Ferrol, Corunna, Cadiz, Minorca, Genoa, Toulon, Alexandria, and Smyrna. He was for 11 months off Rochefort, without once returning to port. He married, 3 May, 1836, Miss E. B. Steere, of Plymouth.
- ↑ Vide Gaz. 1799, p. 873.