A Naval Biographical Dictionary/Whitcombe, Samuel Richard
WHITCOMBE. (Lieutenant, 1815. f-p., 13; h-p., 27.)
Samuel Richard Whitcombe entered the Navy, 16 May, 1807, as Fst.-cl. Vol., on board the Révolutionnaire 38, Capt. Chas. Feilding, stationed in the Channel and off the coast of Portugal. In March, 1808, he joined the Matilda, flag-ship of Sir Henry Edwin Stanhope in the river Thames; and in May, 1809, after having served for 11 months in the North Sea and Channel and off Cadiz in the Triumph 74, Capt. Sir Thos. Masterman Hardy, he was received as Midshipman on board the Barfleur 98, bearing the flag off Lisbon of Hon. Geo. Cranfield Berkeley. While in the latter ship, in which he remained until Feb. 1812, he was employed in her boats in co-operation with the British army up the Tagus. On leaving her he joined the Naijaden frigate, Capt. Farmery Predam Epworth, at Plymouth; and from the following April until promoted to the rank of Lieutenant 6 March, 1815, he served in the Pomone 40, Capts. Fras. Wm. Fane and Philip Carteret, and Narcissus 32, at Newfoundland, in the Downs, on the north coast of Spain, on the coast of Portugal, at Gibraltar, and on the coast of North America. His subsequent appointments were – 13 July, 1816, to the Jasper 10, Capt. Thos. Carew – 14 Dec. 1821, to the Dover 28, flag-ship of Sir John Poo Beresford at Leith – and 26 April, 1824, to the Harrier 18, Capt. Geo. Gosling, on the Irish station. In the Jasper, after visiting Gibraltar and Newfoundland, he was wrecked on the point of Mount Batten, at the entrance of Catwater, 21 Jan. 1817; on which occasion he, the Captain, and two seamen were the only persons who escaped. Since he quitted the Harrier about 1825, he has been on half-pay. Agents – Goode and Lawrence.