A Naval Biographical Dictionary/Wroot, Michael Milsom
WROOT. (Commander, 1827. f-p., 23; h-p., 24.)
Michael Milsom Wroot was born at Whitgift, near Howden, co. York.
This officer entered the Navy, 6 March, 1800, as Midshipman, on board the Requin brig, Lieut.-Commanders Fred. Thesiger and Sam. Fowell; and in the early part of 1801 was wrecked on a sunken rock in Quiberon Bay. He served during the next 18 months in the Channel and West Indies in the Magnificent 74, Capts. Philip Turner Bover and John Giffard; in Feb. and Dec. 1803, and May, 1807, he joined in succession, on the Home and Mediterranean stations, the Ranger sloop, Capt. Chas. Coote, Terrible 74, Capt. Lord Henry Paulet, and Ocean 98, flag-ship of Lord Collingwood; and from 19 June in the year last mentioned until June, 1810, he was again employed in the Terrible, as Acting-Lieutenant and Lieutenant, commission dated 21 Nov. 1807. His subsequent appointments were – 34 Sept. 1810, to the Zephyr sloop, Capts. Fras. Geo. Dickins and Thos. Cuthbert Hichens, in the Downs – 22 Feb. and 3 March, 1812, to the Hannibal and Royal Oak 74’s, flag-ships of Rear-Admirals Lord Amelius Beauclerk and Pulteney Malcolm on the Home and North American stations – 30 Dec. 1815, after six months of half-pay, to the Active 46, Capt. Philip Carteret, in the West Indies, whence he returned in Dec. 1816 – 29 May, 1818, for about three years, to the Superb 78, Capts. Chas. Ekins and Thos. White, with the latter of whom he sailed, under the broad pendant of Sir Thos. Masterman Hardy, for the coast of Brazil – 12 Dec. 1823, to the Bulwark 76, Capt. Thos. Dundas, at Plymouth – and next, to the Blanche 46 and Ocean 80, as Flag-Lieutenant to Lord Amelius Beauclerk, whom he accompanied to the coast of Portugal. While in the Royal Oak he witnessed the operations against Washington, Baltimore, and Alexandria. Previously, too, to sharing in the attack upon New Orleans, where he served on shore with the naval brigade under Sir Edw. Thos. Troubridge,[1] he took command of her boats and, in unison with those of a squadron under the orders of Capt. Nicholas Lockyer, assisted, 14 Dec. 1814, at the capture, on Lake Borgne, of a flotilla of five American gun-vessels under Commodore Jones, whose resistance was protracted until the British had sustained a loss of 17 men killed and 77 wounded. On 11 May, 1827, being then at Lisbon, he was promoted to the rank of Commander into the Spartiate 76, Capt. Fred. Warren; and at the commencement of the following July he was appointed Governor of the forts at the entrance of the Tagus, garrisoned by British marines, the duties attached to which office he continued to discharge until the presence of the army under Lieut.-General Sir W. H. Clinton, sent out to protect Portugal from invasion, was no longer requisite. He returned home in the Spartiate in May, 1828; and has since been on half-pay.
Commander Wroot married, in 1832, Harriet, daughter of the late Capt. John Wentworth Holland, R.N.
- ↑ Vide Gaz. 1815, p. 451, where every praise is declared to be his due.