Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Beaver, Philip
BEAVER, PHILIP (1766–1813), captain in the royal navy, son of the Rev. James Beaver, curate of Lewknor in Oxfordshire, was born on 28 Feb. 1766. He was little more than eleven years old when his father died, and his mother, being left poor, was glad to accept the offer of Captain Joshua Rowley, then commanding the Monarch, to take the boy with him to sea. His naval service began in October 1777; and during the following year, as midshipman of the Monarch, he witnessed the fight, celebrated in song, between the Arethusa and Belle-Poule (17 June), and had his small share in the notorious action off Ushant (27 July). In December he followed Rowley to the Suffolk, and went in her to the West Indies. He continued with Rowley, by this time rear-admiral, in the Suffolk, Conqueror, Terrible, and Princess Royal, in the fleet under admirals the Hon. John Byron, Hyde Parker, and Sir George Rodney, during the eventful years 1779-80, and afterwards under Sir Peter Parker at Jamaica. At Jamaica young Beaver continued during the rest of the war. On 2 June 1783 his patron. Admiral Rowley, advanced him to the rank of lieutenant. During the next ten years he resided principally with his mother at Boulogne, his naval service being limited to a few months in 1790 and in 1791, on the occasions known as the Spanish and the Russian armaments.
In the end of 1791 he associated himself with a scheme for colonising the island of Bulama on the coast of Africa, near Sierra Leone, and left England for that place on 14 April 1792. The whole affair seems from the beginning to have been conducted without forethought or knowledge. The would-be settlers were, for the most part, idle and dissipated. Beaver found himself at sea in command of a vessel of 260 tons, with 66 men, 24 women, and 31 children, mostly sea-sick, and all equally useless. When they landed, anything like discipline was unattainable. The party, assembled on shore, proved ignorant alike of law, industry, or order. The directors lost heart and took an early opportunity of returning to England. The command devolved on Beaver, and during a period of eighteen months he endeavoured, by unceasing toil, to keep a little order and to promote a little industry; but the men were quite unfitted for the work and manner of life, and the greater number of them died. The miserable remnants of the party evacuated the island in November 1798, and went to Sierra Leone, whence Beaver obtained a passage to England, and arrived at Plymouth 17 May 1794. War with France had meantime been declared, and a proclamation in the 'Gazette' had ordered all naval officers to report themselves to the admiralty. Beaver had felt morally bound to stay with the colony. 'If I disobey their lordships' orders in the "Gazette,"' he wrote to the secretary of the admiralty, 'I know that I am liable to lose my commission; and if I obey them, I never deserved one.' His excuses had been favourably received, and within two months after his return he was appointed first lieutenant of the 64-gun ship Stately.
This ship, commanded by Captain Billy Douglas, sailed for the East Indies in March 1795, but near the Cape of Good Hope fell in with Sir George Elphinstone, afterwards Lord Keith, and was by him detained to take part in the conquest of that settlement. Subsequently, in the East Indies, the Stately was engaged in the reduction of Ceylon, and on the homeward voyage again met with Sir George Elphinstone off Cape Agulhas. It was blowing very hard, and, as she joined the admiral, a violent squall rent her sails into ribbons and threw the ship on her beam-ends. The smart seamanlike manner in which she was righted and brought into station, with new sails set, caught the admiral's attention, and a few days later he moved Beaver into his own ship. Sir George returned to England in the spring of 1797, and, as first lieutenant of the flagship, Beaver should, in ordinary course, have been promoted. In this, however, he was disappointed; he was still a lieutenant when, in the next year, Lord Keith was appointed to the command of the Mediterranean station, and went out with his lordship as first lieutenant of the Foudroyant and afterwards of the Barfleur. The juniors were appointed, as it seemed to Beaver, for promotion rather than for duty. He was thus driven to bring Lord Cochrane, the junior lieutenant, to a court-martial for disrespect. Lord Cochrane, though admonished to avoid flippancy, was acquitted of the charge, which Beaver was told ought not to have been pressed. The circumstance did not, however, interfere with the admiral's good will. On 19 June 1799 Beaver was made a commander, and a few months later was appointed by Lord Keith to the flag-ship as acting assistant-captain of the fleet. During April and May 1800 Beaver was specially employed in command of the repeated bombardments of Genoa, and on the surrender of Massena was sent home with the despatches. Unfortunately for him Marengo had been fought before he arrived; it was known in England that Genoa was lost again before it was known how it had first been won; and Beaver went back to Lord Keith without his expected promotion. On his way out he was detained for a fortnight at Gibraltar, where he took the opportunity to get married to a young lady, Miss Elliott, to whom he had been for some time engaged. Shortly after rejoining the admiral he was advanced to post rank, and appointed to the command of the flag-ship, in which he had an important share in the operations on the coast of Egypt (1800-1); but in June of this latter year, being weary of the monotony of the blockade, he obtained permission to exchange into the Déterminée frigate, and in her was sent up to Constantinople with despatches. The sultan was desirous of acknowledging this service with a large sum of money, which Beaver positively declined, though he afterwards consented to accept a diamond box for himself and a gold box for each of the lieutenants. He also received for his services in Egypt the Turkish order of the Crescent.
On the conclusion of the peace of Amiens the Déterminée was ordered home, and was paid off at Portsmouth on 19 May 1802. Beaver now settled down on shore, and was placed in charge of the sea fencibles of Essex in July 1803. Three years later he was appointed to the Acasta, 40-gun frigate, and in her proceeded to the West Indies, where he remained until after the capture of Martinique, in February 1809. He was then sent home in charge of convoy and with a large number of French prisoners. Some months later he was appointed to the Nisus of 38 guns, a new frigate just launched, and on 22 June 1810 sailed in her for the East Indies. He arrived on the station in time to take a very distinguished part, under Vice-admiral Albemarle Bertie, in the reduction of Mauritius (November 1810), and, under Rear-admiral the Hon. Robert Stopford, in the conquest of Java (August and September 1811). After nearly a year spent in the Mozambique and on the coast of Madagascar, towards the end of 1812 the Nisus received her orders for England, and in the latter days of March 1813 put into Table Bay on her homeward voyage. Here Beaver, who had complained of a slight indisposition, was seized with a violent inflammation of the bowels, and, after a few days of the most excruciating torment, died on 5 April.
Beaver was a man of remarkable energy and ability, and in the exceptional posts which he held, both in the Mediterranean and in the East Indies, he performed his duty not only effectively, but without awakening the jealousy of his seniors whom he temporarily superseded. So far as his profession permitted, he was an almost omnivorous reader of solid books; during one cruise he read entirely through the 'Encyclopædia Britannica.' In command he was a strict disciplinarian; but at a time when strictness not unfrequently degenerated into cruelty, no charge of tyranny was ever made against him; and yet, says his perhaps partial biographer, 'the pardonable weakness of forgiving a little more frequently would, perhaps, have brought the commander's character nearer to perfection.'
By his early death, and the previous bankruptcy of his agent, his widow, with six children, was left but poorly provided for. The efforts of his friends in her behalf produced no result, and she was eventually reduced to accept the situation of matron of Greenwich Hospital school as a refuge from pecuniary distress.
[The Life and Services of Captain Philip Beaver, late of His Majesty's Ship Nisus, by Captain W. H. Smyth, R.N., K.S.F., F.R.S., &c., 8vo, 1829; Captain Beaver himself published an account of his Bulama experiences, under the title of African Memoranda, 4to, 1805; he also contributed to the papers of the day some letters on nautical subjects, a selection of which was re-published by Captain Smyth.]