A Naval Biographical Dictionary/Tills, Charles
TILLS. (Retired Commander, 1844. f-p., 17; h-p., 33.)
Charles Tills died 8 June, 1845, at 7, Park Place, North Brixton, co. Surrey, aged 69.
This officer entered the Navy, 6 Jan. 1796, as A.B., on board the Marie Antoinette, Lieut.-Commanders Perkins and Horsley, of which vessel he was nominated, in the following March, Acting- Master. In the course of the same year, with her boats under his orders, he was severely wounded in boarding a privateer off St. Domingo; and in the early part of 1797 he was, in company with those of the Rattler sloop, at the capture, under a heavy fire, of four armed row-boats and a privateer of 2 guns and 56 men. From June, 1797, until Jan. 1800, he served, still as Acting-Master, in the Proselyte, Capts. Loring and Fowke, on the West India, Irish, Channel, and North Sea stations. In 1799 he took part in the operations connected with the expedition to Holland. On leaving the Proselyte he was received as Master’s Mate on board the Shannon 38, Capt. Chas. Dudley Pater, in which frigate, and the Princess Charlotte 38, Capt. Hon. Fras. Farington Gardner, he was for two years and two months employed on the Home station. Being appointed, in the summer of 1802, Admiralty-Midshipman of the Phoebe 36, Capt. Hon. Thos. Bladen Capel, he proceeded soon afterwards to the Mediterranean, where, previously to removing as Master’s Mate, in Aug. 1803, to the Victory 100, flag-ship of Lord Nelson, he was again wounded in boarding two armed vessels on the coast of Genoa. On 16 Jan. 1805 he was nominated Acting-Lieutenant of the Tigre 74, Capt. Benj. Hallowell; he was confirmed to that ship, after having accompanied the expedition to Egypt, 7 Oct. 1807; and he was next appointed – 23 April, 1808, to L’Aigle 36, Capt. Geo. Wolfe, under whom he witnessed Lord Cochrane’s celebrated attack upon the French shipping in Aix Roads – 31 Oct. 1809, after three months of half-pay, to the Curaçoa 36, Capt. John Tower, stationed in the Channel and Mediterranean – and, 12 July, 1813 (he had been discharged from the Curaçoa, we believe, in Sept. 1812), to the Rippon 74, Capt. Sir Christopher Cole. In the ship last mentioned he beheld, 21 Oct. 1813, the surrender, off Ushant, of the French 44- gun frigate Le Weser. He was placed on half-pay in Sept. 1814; admitted to the out-pension of Greenwich Hospital 16 July, 1831; and invested with the rank of Commander on the Retired List 15 April, 1844. For his wounds he obtained a grant from the Patriotic Fund.