A Naval Biographical Dictionary/Selby, George
SELBY. (Lieut., 1811. f-p., 12; h-p., 31.)
George Selby was born 5 Nov. 1789.
This officer entered the Navy, 6 Jan. 1804, as Third-cl. Yol., on board the Cerberus 32, Capt. Wm. Selby. In the following March he attained the rating of Midshipman; and after serving for some time on the Guernsey station under the flag of Sir Jas. Saumarez, he sailed for the West Indies; where, on the night of 2 Jan. 1807, we find him assisting in the boats and extolled for his unsurpassed bravery at the cutting-out of two of the enemy’s vessels, under a most tremendous fire from the batteries, near Pearl Rock, Martinique, which killed 2 men and wounded 10, including the conducting-officer, Lieut. Wm. Coote, whose gallantry procured him a Commander’s commission.[1] Subsequently to the surrender of the islands of Marie-Galante and Deseada, Mr. Selby, in July, 1808, removed to the Leviathan 74, Capt. John Harvey; under whom, on proceeding to the Mediterranean, he aided, in Oct. 1809, in causing the self-destruction, off Cape Cette, of the French ships-of-the-line Robuste and Lion. On 20 May, 1811, having passed his examination 29 March, 1810, he was confirmed a Lieutenant, four months after he had been ordered to act as such, in the Circe 32, Capt. Edw. Woolcombe, also in the Mediterranean, whence, in March, 1812, he returned, on leave of absence, to England. His last appointments were – 26 Feb. and 8 March, 1813, to the Ville de Paris 110, and Boyne 98, both commanded, in the Channel and Mediterranean, by Capt. Geo. Burlton – 22 Sept. 1814, to the Urgent 14, Capt. Gamaliel Fitzmaurice, again in the Channel – 22 Nov. 1814, to the Cornwallis 74, flag-ship in the East Indies of his former Captain, then Rear-Admiral Burlton – and in Oct. 1815, as First, to the Wellesley 74, Capt. John Bayley. In the Boyne he shared, 13 Feb. 1814, in Sir Edw. Pellew’s rencontre with the French Toulon fleet; on which occasion that ship bore the brunt of the engagement, was for half-an-hour in action, close in-shore, and under the enemy’s batteries, with the Romulus 74, and sustained a loss of 2 men killed and 40 wounded, besides being much damaged in her hull, masts, and rigging. Mr. Selby returned home from the East Indies in the Wellesley in June, 1816, and has since been on half-pay.
The Lieutenant is a Justice of the Peace for co. Northumberland. He married, 21 Oct. 1840, Mary Anne, daughter of the late Rev. Chas. Thomson, Curate of Howick.
- ↑ Vide Gaz. 1807, p. 394.