Dictionary of National Biography, 1912 supplement/Brand, Herbert Charles
BRAND, HERBERT CHARLES ALEXANDER (1839–1901), commander R.N., born on 10 July 1839 at Bathwick, Somersetshire, was son of Charles Brand by his wife Caroline Julia Sanders. He entered the navy in December 1851, and as a midshipman served on the Britannia flagship in the Black Sea in 1854, and in the Colossus in the Baltic in 1855, thus getting the Baltic medal in addition to the Crimean, with the Sebastopol clasp, and the Turkish. He was appointed in 1856 to the Calcutta, going out to China as the flagship of Sir Michael Seymour (1802-87) [q. v.]. While in her he was present at the destruction of the junks in Fatshan Creek, at the capture of Canton, and at the capture of the Taku forts in 1858. Afterwards, as a sub-lieutenant of the Cruiser, he took part in the unsuccessful attack on the Taku forts (25 June 1859) [see Hope, Sir James], and the next day received from the commander-in-chief his promotion to the rank of lieutenant. In 1865, still a lieutenant, he commanded the Onyx gun-vessel on the West Indian station, and gave efficient support to the military in suppressing the revolt of the negroes in Morant Bay [see Eyre, Edward John, Suppl. II; Nelson, Sir Alexander Abercromby], and sat as president of the court-martial held, by order of the general in command, on the ringleaders. For this service he was officially thanked by the governor, the general and the assembly; but at home the humanitarians, unable to realise the urgency of a danger to which themselves and their families had not been exposed, preferred charges of murder against both Nelson and Brand, which were inquired into by the magistrate at Bow Street in February 1867. On 10 April they were brought up for trial at the Old Bailey, when Lord Justice Cockburn ended his very full charge to the grand jury with the statement that, 'if ever there were circumstances which justified the application of martial law, in his judgment they were to be found in this case.' As a result, the grand jury found 'no true bill,' and the prisoners were discharged. If, in addition to the stern resolution which had made his services valuable in Jamaica, Brand had possessed the useful quality of discretion, he would probably have been rewarded for his good and disagreeable services; but he permitted his temper to rule his action and to dictate several ill-judged letters to his principal accusers, who promptly published them, and thus held him up to public opprobrium as a quarrelsome bully. These letters forced the admiralty to the conclusion that he could not be promoted, and thus, though employed for some little time in the command of a gun vessel on the coast of Ireland during the Fenian troubles, he was virtually shelved some time before his retirement with the nominal rank of commander in July 1883. He died at Bath early in June 1901.
[Royal Navy Lists; Annual Registers; Irving, Annals of our Time (see Index, s. w. Brand, Eyre, Nelson, Jamaica); Hamilton Hume, Life of Edward John Eyre, 1867; The Times, 11 June 1901.]