Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Hewett, William Nathan Wrighte
HEWETT, Sir WILLIAM NATHAN WRIGHTE (1834–1888), vice-admiral, son of Dr. William Hewett, physician to William IV, was born at Brighton on 12 Aug. 1834. He entered the navy in March 1847, and served as a midshipman in the Burmese war of 1851. In 1854, while acting mate of the Beagle gun-vessel, he was attached to the naval brigade in the Crimea, and on 26 Oct. was in command of a Lancaster gun in battery before Sebastopol. A column of Russians threatened it in flank, and hurried orders were sent to spike the gun and draw off the men. Hewett boldly answered that he took no orders that did not come from Captain Lushington, the commander of the brigade; and breaking down the side parapet of the battery, he slewed the gun round, and opened a terrible fire of grape on the Russian column, then barely three hundred yards distant. The effect in that part of the field was decisive. A few days later his gallant conduct at Inkerman (5 Nov.) was again reported by Captain Lushington, and he was immediately promoted to be lieutenant, with seniority of 26 Oct. He was also appointed to the command of the Beagle, in which he served during the war, especially in the operations against Kertch and in the Sea of Azof, and which he held after the peace till the summer of 1857. On the institution of the Victoria Cross Hewett was one of the first recipients, his conduct on 26 Oct. and 5 Nov. 1854 being equally named in the ‘Gazette,’ 24 Feb. 1857 (O'Byrne, The Victoria Cross, p. 43). His rank had been all this time only provisional; he now passed his examination at Portsmouth, and was appointed to the royal yacht, from which he was promoted to the rank of commander 13 Sept. 1858. He then successively commanded the Viper on the west coast of Africa, and the Rinaldo on the North American and West Indian station. On 24 Nov. 1862 he was made a captain. He afterwards commanded the Basilisk on the China station from 1865 to 1869; was flag-captain to Sir Henry Kellett in the Ocean on the China station from 1870 to 1872; was captain of the Devastation 1872–3; and from October 1873 to October 1876 was commodore and commander-in-chief on the west coast of Africa, in charge of the naval operations during the Ashantee war, being present at Amoaful and the capture of Coomassie. For his services during this campaign he was nominated a K.C.B. on 31 March 1874. In May 1877 he was appointed to the Achilles, and commanded her in the Mediterranean and the Sea of Marmora under Sir Geoffrey Hornby. He attained his flag on 21 March 1878, and in April 1882 he was appointed commander-in-chief in the East Indies. During the Egyptian war of 1882 he conducted the naval operations in the Red Sea, especially the occupation of Suez and the seizure of the canal in August. The war in the Eastern Soudan again called him to the Red Sea. After the defeat of the Egyptians at El Teb Hewett landed with a force of seamen and marines for the defence of Suakim, 6 Feb. 1884, and on the 10th was formally appointed governor by Baker Pasha, as representative of the khedive. On the 29th he was present, unofficially, it would seem, at the second battle of El Teb. In April he went on a mission to King John of Abyssinia, whom, by judicious concessions on points relating to traffic, he induced to support the Egyptian garrisons in his neighbourhood, and more especially Kassala. On 8 July 1884 he became a vice-admiral, and from March 1886 to April 1888 was in command of the Channel fleet. He had been for some months in very delicate health, which became seriously worse after his retirement from his command; he was sent as a patient to Haslar Hospital, where he died on 13 May 1888. He married, in 1857, Jane Emily, daughter of Mr. T. Wood, consul for the Morea, and left issue, besides two daughters, three sons, two of whom, William Warrington Hewett and Edward Matson Hewett, became lieutenants in the navy. Besides the K.C.B. he was also K.C.S.I., chevalier of the Legion of Honour, of the Medjidie, and of the Abyssinian order of Solomon.
[Information from Lady Hewett; Navy Lists; Kinglake's War in the Crimea, v. 16; Brackenbury's Ashanti War; Archer's War in Egypt and the Soudan, vol. ii.; Royle's Egyptian Campaigns.]