A Naval Biographical Dictionary/Willson, John
WILLSON. (Commander, 1841. f-p., 21; h-p., 23.)
John Willson was born 19 Dec. 1782.
This officer (who had been apprenticed to the merchant-service in Oct. 1797, and had made one voyage in an Indiaman to China, and another to Hudson’s Bay in a ship belonging to that Company) was impressed into the Navy, 19 Nov. 1803, as A.B., on board La Chiffonne 36, Capts. Chas. Adam and Patrick Campbell, under the former of whom we find him, in June, 1805, present, in company with the Falcon sloop. Clinker gun-brig, and Francis armed cutter, and assisting, after a chase of nine hours (during which the British suffered much from the incessant fire of the forts along shore), in driving under the batteries of Fécamp a division of the French flotilla, consisting of 2 corvettes and 15 gun-vessels, carrying in all 51 guns, 4 8-inch mortars, and 3 field-pieces, accompanied by 14 transports. He was at other times in action with the enemy in the neighbourhood of Boulogne; and was in the boats under the First-Lieutenant, the late Sir Robt. Hall, at the capture of a Spanish guard-boat and the cutting out of a galliot in the Bay of Algeciras. In May, 1806, he removed to the Milan 38, Capt. Sir Robt. Laurie; and after serving for four years and four months in that frigate, the greater part of the time as Midshipman and Master’s Mate, on the coast of North America and in the West Indies, he successively, 12 Sept. and 22 Nov. 1810, joined, in the capacity last mentioned, the Hibernia 120 and Centaur 74, Capts. J. Nash and John Chambers White. In the latter ship and her boats he cooperated in the defence of Tarragona until its fall in June, 1811. He was nominated Second-Master of the Centaur 15 Aug. 1811; and he served as such in the Ajax 74, with Capts. Sir R. Laurie, Robt. Waller Otway, and Geo. Mundy, from 19 Dec. in the same year until promoted to the rank of Lieutenant 8 Feb. 1815. He was stationed during that period off Toulon, in Basque Roads, and on the north coast of Spain, and made a voyage to Quebec. He was in the boats at the capture of the small island of Santa Clara, near St. Sebastian, 26 Aug. 1813; he commanded there at the capture, 18 and 21 Oct. following, of a French brig and chasse-marée; and he aided in taking, 17 March, 1814, L’Alcyon national brig of 16 guns and 120 men. He was employed as First-Lieutenant in the Redpole 10, Capts. Patrick Duff Henry Hay and Rich. Anderson, and Samarang 28, Capt. David Dunn, on the Channel, Mediterranean, and Cape of Good Hope stations, from 24 Nov. 1820 until 17 Dec. 1823, and from 12 Jan. 1825 until 28 April, 1828; and he held command, from 31 Jan. 1839 until 25 April, 1842, of the Aetna 6, between Shetland and St. Sebastian, and as a receivmg-ship in the river Mersey. He has since been on half-pay. The commission he now holds bears date 23 Nov. 1841.
Through the recommendation of Capts. Henry Eden and P. D. H. Hay, an application was made in 1832, and again in 1834, by Capts. Lord Wm. Paget and Geo. Henderson, to the effect that Commander Willson might be appointed First of the ships they commanded, the North Star 28 and Columbine 18; but, inasmuch as he was misnamed in the request Wilson, he each time lost the appointment.