A Naval Biographical Dictionary/Schomberg, Alexander Wilmot
SCHOMBERG. (Vice-Admiral of the Red, 1841. f-p., 24; h-p., 38.) Alexander Wilmot Schomberg, born in 1775, is eldest son of the late Sir Alex. Schomberg Kt., Captain R.N.,[1], by Mary Susannah Arabella, only child of the Rev. Henry Chalmers, and niece of Sir Edm. Aleyn, Bart.; brother of the late Capt. Sir Chas. Marsh Schomberg, R.N., Kt., C.B., K.C.H.;[2]
and cousin of Lieut. Henry Chas. Schomberg, R.N. His family is a branch of that of the Duke of Schomberg, who commanded the King’s troops and fell at the battle of the Boyne, aged 80. This officer entered the Navy, in April, 1785, as Fst.-cl. Vol., on board the Dorset yacht, commanded in the Irish Channel by his father. Sir A. Schomberg. After having been for about two years and a half lent as Midshipman to the Porcupine 24, Capt. Lambert Brabazon, he joined, tovpards the close of 1789, the Impregnable 98, flag-ship of Sir Rich. Bickerton at Plymouth, Lowestoffe 32, Capt. Edm. Dod, attached to the force in the Channel, and Trusty 50, bearing the flag of Sir John Laforey in the West Indies, where he was confirmed a Lieutenant, 26 July, 1793, in the Nautilus sloop, Capt. Henry Paulet, and next appointed to the Solebay 32, Capts. Wm. Hancock Kelly and Henry Wm. Bayntun, and Boyne 98, flag-ship of Sir John Jervis. While belonging to the Solebay he commanded a body of 50 seamen, in conjunction with the army under Sir Chas. Grey, during the operations against Martinique, Ste. Lucie, and Guadeloupe. He also served on shore when an attempt was made to re-conquer the posts in the island last mentioned, which had been unexpectedly and successfully attacked, in the hurricane season, by a Republican force under the notorious Victor Hugues. Having, in consequence of a severe attack of yellow fever, returned, towards the close of 1794, to England in the Dictator 64, Commodore E. Dod, he was next, 22 June, 1795, appointed to the Glatton of 56 guns and 320 men, Capt. Henry Trollope; in which ship, stationed in the North Sea, we find him, 15 July, 1796, contributing to the defeat (after a fierce and memorably gallant engagement, productive of serious loss to the enemy, although not more than 2 were wounded on the part of the British) of a French squadron, consisting of four frigates and two ship-corvettes, assisted by a brig-corvette and an armed cutter, the whole of which were compelled to sheer off. During this action, which took place in a quarter-less-five fathoms water, close to the Brill lighthouse, Mr. Schomberg, who commanded on the lower deck, finding that his men were not sufficiently numerous to fight all the guns on both sides, resorted to Lord Anson’s expedient of forming them into small gangs, whose duty it became to load and run the guns out, while two picked hands left at each of them pointed and fired. On the return of the Glatton to port, having been recommended for his conduct,[3] he was appointed, 28 July, 1796, First of the Amphion 32, as a step towards promotion; but that ship unfortunately was destroyed by fire, in Hamoase, while he was on his passage to join her. In the following Jan., however, he was placed in command of the Rambler brig of 14 guns and 86 men; in which vessel (invested, 2 April, 1798, with the rating of a sloop-of-war) he continued employed on the coasts of Holland and Norway, at Newfoundland, off Cherbourg, and on the Guernsey and Jersey stations, until advanced, 1 Jan. 1801, to Post-rank. While cruizing, 22 July, 1797, off the Doggerbank, in company with the Tisiphone sloop, Capt. Robt. Honyman, the Rambler made prize of Le Prospère privateer of 14 guns and 73 men. In 1798, during her passage from Newfoundland with the trade bound to the coast of Portugal, she encountered on the Great Bank a tremendous gale, was thrown on her beam-ends, and nearly foundered. On this occasion she parted with 12 of her guns; and on another she pitched away her bowsprit and foremast. Capt. Schomberg’s last appointments were – in 1804, to the temporary command of the Windsor Castle 98, off Brest – 31 Oct. 1807, to the Loire of 48 guns and 300 men – 21 March, 1812, to the Dictator 64 – 13 Aug. following, to the York 74, employed, until paid off in Aug. 1815, on the Home and North American stations – and, 1 March, 1829, to the Melville 74, fitting for the Mediterranean. In the Loire, with the Success 32, Capt. John Ayscough, under his orders, he made a voyage, in the spring of 1808, to the Greenland seas for the protection of the fisheries, and proceeded as far as lat. 77° 30' N., long. 3° 00' E. He next, towards the close of the same year, accompanied only by the Amelia 38 and Champion 24, escorted from Falmouth to Corunna no less than 168 transports, having on board an army of 14,000 men. He co-operated subsequently with the patriots on the coasts of Galicia, Asturias, and Biscay; brought 100 Russian prisoners-of-war from the Tagus to England; effected the capture, 5 Feb. 1809, of the French national ship Hébé[4] (afterwards assigned the name of Ganymede); conveyed, early in 1810, a battalion of the 60th Regt. from Spithead to Barbadoes; and had charge, during the siege of Guadeloupe, of a squadron stationed to windward of that island for the interception of any reinforcements intended for the enemy’s garrison. After having brought home from the latter place the French Captain-General Ernouf and his suite, and encountered a hurricane which sent two transports full of prisoners to the bottom, he proceeded to the coast of Norway, and had the good fortune while there to save H.M. sloop Snake from falling into the hands of eight Danish national brigs, who, favoured by a sudden calm, accomplished their escape by sweeping. Between 1810 and 1812 we find him chiefly employed in command of light squadrons in the Baltic, where he watched a Russian fleet in the Gulf of Finland, rendered great security to trade, and so completely blockaded the Danish cruizers that a single sloop-of-war was a sufficient protection for any fleet of merchantmen crossing the North Sea. He once also escorted an outward-bound West India convoy to the latitude of Madeira; and in Dec. 1811 was only spared, by an effort of judgment, from sharing the melancholy fate of the Minotaur, with whom he had been in company a short time before she was wrecked. During the time he commanded the York, Capt. Schomberg occasionally blockaded Rochefort and L’Orient, and in 1814, with the Vengeur 74 and Erne 20 under his orders, conducted a body of troops from Bordeaux to Quebec, on their passage whither the line-of-battle ships had not less than 1000 men each on board in addition to their proper complements. He continued in the Melville, on the Mediterranean station, until advanced to the rank of Rear-Admiral 22 July, 1830. On 23 Nov. 1841 he was promoted to the rank he now holds. At the end of the war Vice-Admiral Schomberg suggested to Lord Melville a plan, much approved at the time, although eight or nine years elapsed before any of his suggestions were adopted, for victualling the seamen and marines of the fleet, wherein he was the first to propose the substitution of tea, sugar, &c. for half the usual allowance of spirits. In 1818 he printed for private circulation a tract entitled ‘Naval Suggestions,’ many of which have been embraced; and in 1832 he gave to the world his ‘Practical Hints on Building, Rigging, Arming, and Equipping His Majesty’s Ships-of-War, &c.’ The Vice-Admiral married, first, Catherine Anna, only surviving daughter of Stepney Rawson Stepney, Esq., of Castle Durrow, King’s co., Ireland; and secondly, 1 Oct. 1804, Anne, youngest daughter of the late Rear-Admiral Rich. Smith, of Poulton-cum-Seccombe, in Cheshire, whose mother had had the early care of King George III. By his first marriage he has one son, Herbert, a Commander R.N.; and by his second, two, the elder of whom, Frederick Charles, holds the same rank in the service. The younger, George Augustus, is a First-Lieutenant R.M.A. (1834). Agents – Messrs. Halford and Co.
- ↑ Sir Alexander Schomberg obtained his first commission 11 Dec. 1747, and was posted into the Richmond frigate 5 April, 1757. He commanded the Diana 32, at the reduction of Quebec in 1759, and distinguished himself greatly during the siege of that important fortress, by a French army under Mons. Levi, in May, 1760. On the enemy being repulsed he was sent home with the tidings. On his arrival he was placed in command of the Essex, a new 64, in which he continued employed under the orders of Sir Edw. Hawke and H.R.H. the Duke of York, until the conclusion of hostilities in Feb. 1763. From Dec. 1771 until the period of his death, which took place in the spring of 1804, he commanded the yacht engaged in attendance upon the successive Viceroys of Ireland, from one of whom he received, in 1777, the honour of knighthood.
- ↑ Sir Chas. Marsh Schomberg entered the Navy on board the Dorset yacht, commanded by his father, Sir Alexander Schomberg. Attaining the rank of Lieutenant 30 April, 1795 he served in that capacity in the Minotaur 74, Capt. Thos. Louis, at the battle of the Nile, and was First of the same ship in a variety of operations on the coast of Italy. While employed in the Foudroyant 80, as Flag-Lieutenant to Lord Keith, during the campaign of 1801 in Egypt, he was made Commander into the Termagant sloop. On the termination of hostilities, up to which period he had been serving on shore, he joined the Charon 44, and assisted in conveying the French troops from Alexandria to Malta. He acquired Post-rank 6 Aug. 1803, and commanded, during the after-part of the war, the Madras 54, the Hibernia 120, and Foudroyant 80, flag-ships of Sir Wm. Sidney Smith, the President 50, the Astraea of 42 guns and 271 men, and the Nisus 38. In the Hibernia he witnessed the flight of the Royal House of Portugal to the Brazils; and while in command, in the Astraea, of a squadron composed of that ship, the Phoebe and Galatea, frigates of similar force, and 18-gun brig Racehorse, he made prize, 20 May, 1811 (after a long and warmly-contested action fought off Madagascar with the French 40-gun frigates Renommée, Clorinde, and Néréide) of the Renommée, and took, on 25 of the same month, the Néréide and the settlement of Tamatave. From April, 1820, until April, 1824, he commanded the Rochfort 80, bearing the flag of Sir Graham Moore, in the Mediterranean; and from 30 Sept. 1828 until 1832, the Maidstone 42, at the Cape of Good Hope, where he was for three years Commodore and Commander-in-Chief. He was nominated a C.B. 4 June 1815, and a K.C.H. 21 Sept. 1832; and, about the latter period, was invested with the honour of Knighthood. He had previously received the insignia of a K.T.S. at the hands of the Prince of Brazil. He died Lieutenant-Governor of Barbadoes on board the President 52, flag-ship of Sir Geo. Cockburn, lying at the time in Carlisle Bay, 2 Jan. 1835.
- ↑ Vide Gaz. 1796, p. 703.
- ↑ This vessel, pierced for 34 guns, but mounting only 18 24-pounder carronades and 2 long 12-pounders, with a complement of 160 men, did not surrender until she had been for eight hours chased, and had endured a night-action of 20 minutes. She was full of stores under hatches. – Vide Gaz. 1809, p. 193.