A Naval Biographical Dictionary/Roberts, John Walter
ROBERTS. (Captain, 1823. f-p., 13; h-p., 30.)
John Walter Roberts was born in 1792 and died 2 Oct. 1845 at Petersham. He was eldest son of the Rev. Wm. Roberts, D.D., Vice-Provost of Eton College, and Rector of Worplesdon, co. Surrey (whose father was Provost of Eton), by a daughter of Col. John Gore, Lieutenant-Governor of the Tower of London, and sister of the late Vice-Admiral Sir John Gore, K.C.B., K.C.H. He was brother-in-law of the late Earl of Egremont.
This officer entered the Navy, in Dec. 1804, as Fst.-cl. Vol., on board the Medusa 32, commanded by his uncle Sir John Gore; under whom he escorted the Marquis Cornwallis as Governor-General to India, and thence returned, a distance of 13,831 miles, in the extraordinarily short period of 82 days. Following his relative as Midshipman, in Feb. 1806, into the Revenge 74, he served in that ship off Brest and L’Orient and for nine months at the blockade of Rochefort, where he witnessed, 25 Sept. 1806, the capture of four heavy French frigates by a squadron under the orders of Sir Sam. Hood. After serving for two years on the coast of Spain and among the Western Islands in the Endymion 40, Capt. Hon. Thos. Bladen Capel, he again, in Aug. 1810, joined Sir John Gore on board the Tonnant 80, employed in the Channel and off Lisbon. From July to Sept. 1811 he cruized in the Bay of Biscay as Acting-Lieutenant in the Amazon 38, Capt. Wm. Parker. He was officially promoted, 6 March, 1812, into the Armada 74, Capt. Chas. Grant, in the Mediterranean; and was next appointed, on that station – 9 May, 1812, to the Repulse 74, Capt. Rich. Hussey Moubray – 30 Jan. 1813, to the Impérieuse 38, Capt. Hon. Henry Duncan – 4 Jan. 1814, to the Caledonia 120, flagship of Sir Edw. Pellew – and 24 March ensuing, to the Revenge, as Signal-Lieutenant to his uncle, then Rear-Admiral Sir John Gore. From the latter ship he was promoted to the rank of Commander 26 Aug. 1814. On 18 April, 1820, we find him assuming command of the Shearwater 10; in which vessel, until paid off at the commencement of 1822, he served on the St. Helena station. On one occasion, being caught in a violent gale, he was obliged to throw all his guns overboard. His next appointment was, 14 June, 1822, to the Thracian 18, fitting for the West Indies; where, as a reward “for zeal and efforts which had commanded the applause of all,” he was posted, 16 June, 1823, into the Tyne 26. In the ensuing Dec. he returned to England with a freight of 500,000 dollars and a quantity of cochineal on merchants’ account. He did not afterwards go afloat.
Capt. Roberts married, in Nov. 1825, Frances, daughter of John Sargent, Esq., of Lavington Park, co. Sussex, formerly M.P. for Seaford.