A Naval Biographical Dictionary/Richards, Edwin
RICHARDS. (Commander, 1827. f-p., 18; h-p., 26.)
Edwin Richards entered the Navy, 28 July, 1803, as Fst.-cl. Vol., on board the Phaeton 38, Capt. Geo. Cockburn. In that frigate, after serving off Havre-de-Grace, he accompanied Mr. Merry, the British Minister Plenipotentiary, to the United States, and was for some time employed in blockading the Isle of France, where he frequently came into collision with the enemy’s batteries. On his return to England with Capt. Cookburn in the Howe frigate in escort of the Marquis of Wellesley, late Governor-General of India, he was received as a Supernumerary, in Feb. 1806, on board El Corso, Lieut.-Commander Wm. Collins Barker, lying in the river Thames. Remaining in that vessel but a few days, he next, in Sept. of the same year, joined the Captain 74, commanded by Capt. Cockburn, with whom (deducting a few months passed in 1807-8 on board the Achille 74, Capt. Sir Rich. King) he continued to serve in the Pompée, Belleisle, and Implacable 74’s, until Sept. 1810. In the Pompée he co-operated as Master’s Mate in the reduction of Martinique in Feb. 1809; and in the Belleisle he accompanied the expedition to the Walcheren. In Sept. 1810 he became Acting-Lieutenant (a rank he had held for a short time on board the Implacable) of a vessel (the name of which we are not certain of) commanded on the Cadiz station by Capt. Geo. Matthew Jones. He was confirmed a Lieutenant 26 April, 1811; was next, from Aug. 1812 until May, 1813, employed in the Mediterranean in the Blake 74, Capt. Edw. Codrington, and from Oct. 1815 until Aug. 1817 on the Channel and North American stations in the Pactolus 38, Capt. Wm. Hugh Dobbie; attained his present rank 28 April, 1827; and officiated as an Inspecting-Commander in the Coast Guard from 29 Dec. 1828 until the close of 1832, and again from 24 June, 1836, until the summer of 1839. He has since been on half-pay.