Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Gage, William Hall
GAGE, Sir WILLIAM HALL (1777–1864), admiral of the fleet, sixth and youngest son of General the Hon. Thomas Gage [q. v.], was born on 2 Oct. 1777, and entered the navy on board the Bellona guard-ship at Plymouth, in 1789. After serving in several ships on the home, West Indian, and Mediterranean stations, including the Princess Royal flag-ship of Rear-admiral Goodall in the actions off Toulon on 13 March and 13 July 1795, and the Bedford, in the defence of the convoy against Richery off Cadiz, he was appointed to the Victory, carrying the flag of Sir John Jervis, and was promoted from her to be lieutenant of the Minerve frigate, in which he took part in the engagement with the Sabina on 20 Dec. 1796 [see Nelson, Horation, Viscount], in the battle of Cape St. Vincent on 14 Feb., and in the cutting out of the Mutine brig on 29 May 1797. On 13 June 1797 he was made commander, and on 26 July was posted to the Terpsichore frigate, which for the next three years was actively employed in the Mediterranean, and especially in the blockade of Malta, and, having returned to England, was one of the frigates which detained the Danish ships under the convoy of the Freja, an affair which proved one of the main causes of the second armed neutrality and of the battle of Copenhagen (Schomberg, Nav. Chron. iii. 373). In March 1801 Gage was appointed to the Uranie, and on 21 July took part in the cutting out of the French 20-gun corvette Chevrette from under the batteries in Camaret Bay (James, Nav. Hist., ed. 1860, iii. 138). From 1805 to 1808 he commanded the Thetis frigate in the North Sea and Mediterranean, and in 1813–14 the Indus of 74 guns off Toulon under Sir Edward Pellew. In 1821 he became a rear-admiral. From 1825–30 he was commander-in-chief in the East Indies; and in the Downs, May to July 1833. He was nominated a G.C.H. on 19 April 1834, became a vice-admiral on 10 Jan. 1837, was commander-in-chief at Lisbon from April to December 1837, was a member of the board of admiralty 1842–6, and attained the rank of admiral on 9 Nov. 1846. From 1848 to 1851 he was commander-in-chief at Plymouth. This was the end of his long service, though in 1853 he was appointed rear-admiral of the United Kingdom, and vice-admiral in the following year. In 1860 he was nominated a G.C.B., and in 1862 was advanced to be admiral of the fleet. During his later years he lived at Thurston near Bury St. Edmunds, where he freely contributed both time and money to the restoration of the parish church and to the local charities, and where he died on 4 Jan. 1864.
[Marshall's Royal Nav. Biog. i. 836; O'Byrne's Naval Biog. Dict.; Gent. Mag. (1864, vol. I.), new ser. xvi. 388.]