each 2 guns in the bow, off the island of Rhio, in the strait of Singapore. In the Diana, before proceeding to the Walcheren, he had charge of the French coast from Dunkerque to Fécamp.
DENHAM, F.R.S. (Captain, 1846.)
Henry Mangles Denham assisted in surveying the Channel Islands (Guernsey, Jersey, Alderney, &c.). He acted as Chief Assistant in the survey of the English and St. George’s Channels, from the Straits of Dover to the edge of soundings; of the coast of Ireland from the Shannon to Belfast, including Beerhaven, Crookhaven, Valentia, Baltimore, Glandore, Cove of Cork (entrance), Toughall, Waterford, Carlingford, Strangford, Ardglass, Belfast, Copeland Isles, and Larne; and of the English coast, including Falmouth (Sound), Helford, Manacles (reef), St. Helen’s Pool, Scilly Islands, Skerries, Start Bay, Salcombe, Plymouth Sound, and Dartmouth. He has concluded, too, the survey of the Bristol Channel throughout, including Hartland Quay, Clovelly, Barnstaple Bar, Appledore, Ilfracombe, Minehead, Watchet, Bridgewater, Kingroad off the Avon, Cardiff, Newport, Chepstow, Swansea, the Mumbles, Llanelly, Estuary of Bury, Carmarthen, Tenby, Milford Haven, Solvach, St. Bride’s Bay, and Lundy Island; and of the coasts of Lancashire and Cumberland, with the Dee (to Chester), Liverpool Bay, and the Mersey; Morecombe Bay, including Fleetwood, Lancashire, and Piel a Foudra; and the Duddon and Ravenglass estuaries, Whitehaven, Workington, Harrington, Maryport, and Douglas, Isle of Man. The rank of Commander was conferred on him as a reward for the talent he had displayed in the execution of his surveying services generally, and in particular to mark the high sense entertained by the Lords of the Admiralty of the advantages accruing to the public from the completion of his survey of the port and harbour of Liverpool and the neighbouring coast. The return of the port of Liverpool to the mere capacity of a half-tide harbour Capt. Denham succeeded in averting by harrowing a new opening through the Burbo and Jordan Sands, which, on the accession of Her Majesty to the throne, was named the “Victoria Channel.” In reference to a steam survey made by him in the North Sea, the present Hydrographer of the Admiralty, Sir Fras. Beaufort, declared it to be his conviction “that no man would have achieved that great work with more skill;” and, in remarking upon the survey of Morecombe Bay, the same eminent authority recorded it as his opinion “that a more complete and masterly work had rarely been sent to the Admiralty Office.” In allusion to Capt. Denham’s services in the Avon, on the coast of Africa, whither he had been sent for the express purpose of surveying the Bight of Benin, the Hydrographer thus expresses himself: “In examining a survey made in such a deleterious climate, along such an impracticable coast, and in contact with such a treacherous population, I was prepared to make great allowances for work done under such striking disadvantages; but I find, with equal pleasure and surprise, that the whole has been performed with all the precision and fulness that could have been expected if made under the most favourable circumstances.” For this service Capt. Denham was promoted to Post-rank. Subsequently to his return to England he executed several commissions with reference to the steam marine from the Lords Committee of the Privy Council for Trade, under the conjoint authority of the Board of Admiralty, and also with reference to harbour improvements at Swansea and Bideford. His name continued, as a Supernumerary, on the books of the William and Mary yacht, until the summer of 1847. Capt. Denham has been appointed Inspector of Steam-boat Accidents. He is the inventor of “Denham’s Rowlocks” for rowing boats; and of “Denham’s (registered) Jury-Tiller” for steering a ship on fire abaft, or when twisting her rudder-head, breaking her tiller in a gale of wind, or receiving the enemy’s shot.
DICKINSON. (Captain, 1832.)
Thomas Dickinson, when a Midshipman of the Dreadnought, assisted in the boats of that ship at the capture and destruction of numerous convoys off Cadiz. He first attracted the notice of the late Lord Collingwood by the judgment and conduct he displayed during a heavy gale in bringing alongside of the ship for which they were intended several long spars, which had been taken into tow by the boats of the fleet under an officer whose want of skill had greatly endangered the lives of his men, and whom he had been in consequence sent to supersede. So pleased at his general behaviour was the Admiral that he took him with him as his follower into the Royal Sovereign, and generally selected him for any particular piece of service that was to be performed. The opinion entertained of him, indeed, by Lord Collingwood may be inferred from the annexed extract from an official letter addressed by the latter to the First Lord of the Admiralty, subsequently to the battle of Trafalgar:– “After the action, to supply the vacancies, I gave acting orders to young men who were recommended to me for their activity, and, amongst others, to a Mr. Dickinson, whom I found in the Dreadnought and removed with me to the Royal Sovereign, because he had more knowledge of his profession than is usual, and seemed to be the spirit of the ship when anything was to be done.” After be had been promoted, Mr. Dickinson was appointed by Lord Collingwood First-Lieutenant of the Active. While serving with his Lordship he had been at one time, we may add, for 14 months at the blockade of Cadiz without casting anchor. In the memoir given in the body of this work we have noticed the fact that Mr. Dickinson was present at the capture of La Trave. He was also on that occasion First-Lieutenant. In his despatch to Lord Keith, Capt. Tobin makes the following honourable mention of him:– “The zeal and professional talents of Mr. Dickinson I have long known and endeavoured to appreciate, and on all occasions have sought with avidity his clear and comprehensive counsel; nor is it possible that I can ever cease to cherish a remembrance of it with the warmest gratitude.” During the action Mr. Dickinson had his thigh and knee both broken; he was severely contused, too, on the head, and received several minor wounds in different parts of the body. So severe were his sufferings that he was for seven months confined to the Hospital at Plymouth. At the end of that period he was discharged as incurable; and it was not until two years later that he was enabled to serve again. For his conduct he was promoted to the rank of Commander. While senior officer, in the Lightning, in the Rio de la Plata, he had the good fortune, with the assistance of the British Vice-Consul, to effect a reconciliation between Generals Lavalleja and Fructuoso Rivera, at a period when those personages were contending for the Presidency of Monte Video, and by their operations had brought about a state of things very inimical to the commercial interests of Great Britain. In Dec. 1830, while refitting at Rio de Janeiro on his return from a voyage to the Pacific, Capt. Dickinson heard for the first time of the wreck of the Thetis; which frigate had struck against the cliffs of the uninhabited island of Cape Frio, on the coast of Brazil, and had gone down in deep water in the open ocean with 810,000 dollars on board. From the thoroughly exposed nature of the spot at which the disaster had occurred, and the utter absence of the ordinary implements of submarine operation, the recovery of any part either ot the stores or of the vast amount of treasure engulfed was deemed altogether hopeless. Possessed, however, of a mind ever fertile in resources, and endowed with that spirit of determination and enterprise which brooks no obstacle, and is always necessary to the execution of a bold design, Capt. Dickinson, with no other means at his disposal than such as could be drawn from the slender vessel he commanded, resolved on making the great attempt. Much do we regret that our limits do not permit of our entering into a detail of the contrivances he
