A Naval Biographical Dictionary/Walcott, Charles
WALCOTT. (Captain, 1846.)
Charles Walcott is brother of Capt. J. E. Walcott, R.N.
This officer entered the Navy, 29 June, 1810, as Fst.-cl. Vol., on board the Menelaus 38, Capt. Sir Peter Parker; in which ship, after witnessing the reduction of the Isle of France, he visited the Mediterranean and Chesapeake. He was present on the former station when the Menelaus gallantly pursued the French 40-gun frigate Pauline and 16-gun brig Ecureuil, under the batteries in the neighbourhood of Toulon, and then effected a masterly retreat from the French fleet which had come out to their protection, 28 May, 1812. On the death of Sir Peter Parker, who was killed in a land operation at Bellair, near Baltimore, 30 Aug. 1814, he removed to the Hebrus 36, Capt. Edm. Palmer. In her he served in an attack upon the enemy at Point Petre; at the capture of the town of St. Mary’s; at the forcing, in July, 1815, of the formidable passage of the Gironde and the destruction of the heavy batteries by which it was defended; and at the bombardment of Algiers. After he had been for rather more than 12 months stationed at Portsmouth and Plymouth in the Eridanus 36, Capt. Wm. King, and Queen Charlotte 100, flag-ship of Sir Edw. Thornbrough, he joined, in Dec. 1817, the Sybille 44, bearing the flag of Sir Home Popham in the West Indies; where he was nominated, in Feb. 1819, Acting-Lieutenant of the Confiance 18, Capt. Alex. Montgomerie. He was officially promoted 19 May following; he returned home soon afterwards in the Tartar frigate, Capt. Sir Geo. Ralph Collier; and he was subsequently appointed – 12 Dec. 1825 and 4 Aug. 1826, to the Warspite 76, Commodore Sir Jas. Brisbane, and Champion 18, Capt. John Fitzgerald Studdert, both in the East Indies – and 23 March, 1831, to the Asia 84, Capts. Hyde Parker and Peter Richards, on the Lisbon station. He was advanced to the rank of Commander 5 June, 1834, as a “special promotion on Sir Thos. Masterman Hardy leaving the Admiralty;” and from 22 March, 1838, until rewarded for his services with a Post-commission, 5 Jan. 1846, was employed in the Coast Guard. He has since been on half-pay.
Capt. Walcott is married and has issue.