A Naval Biographical Dictionary/Romney, Francis Darby
ROMNEY. (Retired Commander, 1847. f-p., 15; h-p., 33.)
Francis Darby Romney was born in 1786. Five of his family were in the Naval and Military services.
This officer entered the Navy, 1 July, 1799, as L.M., on board the Osprey 18, Capts. John Watts, John Edgell, and Geo. Irwin, under whom he was for two years employed in the Downs and on the coast of Africa. Joining, then, the Bellerophon 74, Capts. Lord Viscount Garlies and John Loring, he was present under the latter officer, as Midshipman, at the blockade of Cape Francois, St. Domingo, and at the surrender, in the course of 1803, of the 74-gun ship Duquesne and schooner Oiseau, of La Mignonne corvette of 16 guns, of the 40-gun frigate La Créole, having on board the French General Morgan and 530 troops, and of a squadron with the remains of General Rochambeau’s army from Cape Francois. In April, 1805, having returned to England, he removed with Capt. Loring to the Salvador del Mundo, lying at Plymouth. He joined next the Aeolus 32, Capt. Lord Wm. FitzRoy, part of the force employed in Sir Rich. Strachan’s action; and on 8 June, 1807, up to which time he had been serving on the Irish station, he was nominated Sub-Lieutenant of the Charger 12, Lieut.-Commander John Aitkin Blow. In that vessel he witnessed the siege of Stralsund, and assisted at the taking of Copenhagen. Falling, 3 Nov. in the same year, into the hands of the enemy, Mr. Romney was detained a prisoner of war until Jan. 1809. On 25 March following he was made Lieutenant into the Princess of Orange 74, Capt. Fras. Beauman, lying at Sheerness; and he was subsequently appointed – 3 May, 8 July, and 21 Sept. in the same year, to the Venerable 74, flag-ship of Sir R. J. Strachan, Rolla 10, Capt. Sam. Clarke, and Gluckstadt 18, Capt. John Geo. Boss, stationed in the North Sea, Downs, and Baltic – 3 Feb. 1810, to the Dictator 64, Capts. Rich. Harrison Pearson and Robt. Williams, also in the Baltic – 11 April, 1811, to the Leveret 10, Capt. Geo. Wickens Willes, lying at North Yarmouth – in the spring of 1813, to the gun-boat service on the river Elbe, where he remained about 12 months and 4 Oct. 1814, for a few weeks, to the Icarus 10, Capt. Thos. Barker Devon, fitting at Portsmouth. In the Dictator’s boats he cut out two Danish privateers from under a battery on the island of Zealand; he commanded a boat belonging to the Leveret at the capture of L’Eole privateer of 6 guns and 31 men off Heligoland,[1] and at the destruction of another on the coast of Denmark; and while in the gun-boat service above alluded to, he was severely wounded in an attack upon a Danish flotilla at Busum, and was present at the reduction of Cuxhaven and Gluckstadt.[2] Not having been afloat since he left the Icarus, he accepted, 9 April, 1847, the rank he now holds. Agents – Burnett and Holmes.