Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Lushington, Stephen (1803-1877)
LUSHINGTON, Sir STEPHEN (1803–1877), admiral, second son of Sir Henry Lushington, bart., by his wife, Fanny Maria, eldest daughter of Matthew Lewis, under-secretary at war, was born on 12 Dec. 1803. Dr. Stephen Lushington (1782–1873) [q. v.] was his uncle. He entered the navy in 1816 on board the Tagus frigate, with Captain (afterwards Sir) James Whitley Deans Dundas [q. v.], in the Mediterranean. From 1817 to 1821 he was with the Hon. Robert Cavendish Spencer [q. v.] in the Ganymede and Owen Glendower on the Mediterranean and South American stations. He was afterwards in the Hind, also in the Mediterranean, with the Hon. Henry John Rous [q. v.], and in her boats was actively employed in the suppression of piracy in the Archipelago till promoted to be lieutenant on 13 July 1824. In 1825 he was lieutenant of the Zebra sloop, and in 1826–7 of the Cambrian frigate, in which he was present at the battle of Navarino on 20 Oct. 1827. Three days later he was moved by Sir Edward Codrington [q. v.] into his flagship, the Asia, from which, on 13 May 1828, he was promoted to command the Ætna bomb. In her he had a distinguished part in the reduction of Kastro Morea on 30 Oct. 1828, for which he was especially complimented by the French admiral in command, and was nominated a chevalier of the orders of St. Louis and the Redeemer of Greece. On 28 Oct. 1829 he was posted, but had no employment till 19 Jan. 1839, when he was appointed to the Cleopatra of 26 guns, fitting for the West Indies. His health broke down, and after a long illness he was invalided home in November 1840. In 1845–6 he commanded the Retribution on the home station, and in 1847–8 the Vengeance on the home station and in the Mediterranean. From her in November 1848 he was appointed superintendent of the Indian navy, an office which he held till 1852. In July 1852 he commissioned the Albion for service in the Mediterranean, and was still in her when the Russian war broke out in 1854.
At the beginning of the siege of Sebastopol Lushington was landed in command of the naval brigade, with the brilliant services of which his name was throughout most closely associated. He was nominated a K.C.B. on 5 July 1855, an officer and a commander of the Legion of Honour, and was decorated with the order of the Medjidie, 2nd class. On 4 July 1855 he was promoted to be rear-admiral, and from 1862 to 1865 he was lieutenant-governor of Greenwich Hospital. On resigning that appointment he was promoted to be vice-admiral (1 Oct. 1865), being, however, placed on the list according to his original seniority, between April and October 1862. On 2 Dec. 1865 he was advanced to the rank of admiral, and on 13 March 1867 was nominated a G.C.B. He died at Oak Lodge, Thornton Heath, Surrey, on 28 May 1877. He married in 1841 Henrietta, eldest daughter of Rear-admiral Henry Prescott, and left issue. Lady Lushington died in 1875.
[Marshall's Roy. Nav. Biog. x. (vol. iii. pt. ii.) 88; O'Byrne's Nav. Biog. Dict.; Times, 31 May 1877; Army and Navy Gazette, 2 June 1877.]