A Naval Biographical Dictionary/Somerville, George Field
SOMERVILLE. (Retired Commander, 1841. f-p., 14; h-p., 36.)
George Field Somerville is son of the late Capt. Philip Somerville, R.N.
This officer entered the Navy in 1797, as Fst.-cl. Vol., on board the Havick, Capt. Bartholomew, attached to the force on the Home station, where he removed, in the following Nov. to the Eugénie, commanded by his father, became Midshipman, in May, 1799, of the Osprey sloop, Capt. John Watts, and was again, from July, 1800, until April, 1802, and from Dec. in the latter year until Feb. 1805, employed with Capt. Somerville, part of the time as Master’s Mate, in the Eugénie and the Nemesis 28. He was nominated then Sub-Lieutenant of the Nimble brig, Lieut.-Commander Thos. Delafour; was made full Lieutenant, 7 May, 1805, into his former ship the Nemesis, still commanded by Capt. Somerville, on the Newfoundland station; and was subsequently appointed – 22 April, 1807, and 6 July, 1808, to the Hussar 38, Capt. Robt. Lloyd, and Ulysses 44, Capts. Christopher John Williams Nesham, Wm. Maude, Edw. Woolcombe, and Hon. Warwick Lake – 11 Nov. 1809, to the Circe 32, Capt. E. Woolcombe, under whom he assisted at the defence of Cadiz – and, 12 May, 1813, after two years of half-pay, to the Rota 38, in which ship he served with his father on the coast of North America and in the West Indies until April, 1814, when he invalided. In the Hussar Mr. Somerville witnessed the attack upon Copenhagen; and while Senior of the Ulysses he co-operated in the reduction of Martinique, and commanded a flat-bottomed boat in the expedition to the Scheldt. He accepted his present rank 16 Sept. 1841.
He is married and has a son, Philip Hodge, a Commander R.N. Agents – Goode and Lawrence.