Royal Naval Biography/Hotham, William (b)
WILLIAM HOTHAM, Esq.
[Post-Captain of 1825.]
Son of the late Lieutenant-Colonel George Hotham, (eldest son of General George Hotham, and brother to Admiral Lord Hotham[1]) who served in the third regiment of guards, under H.R.H. the late Duke of York, in Flanders, and afterwards resided at Beverley, in Yorkshire.
This officer was born about the year 1793, and he first went to sea, at the age of ten years, in the Raisonnable 64, commanded by his uncle, the present Vice-Admiral Sir William Hotham, K.C.B., then stationed off the Texel. In 1804, he joined the Ruby 64, Captain (now Vice-Admiral Sir Charles) Rowley, which ship was attached to Sir John Orde’s squadron, off Cadiz, in the winter of that year. From Nov. 1805 until the spring of 1809, we find him serving under Captain Rowley, in the Eagle 74, on the Mediterranean station. He was consequently present at the capture of Capri, the siege of Gaeta, and the disarming of the coasts of Naples and Calabria, in the summer of 1806[2].
On her return from the Mediterranean, the Eagle was attached to the grand armament sent against Antwerp; and in Feb. 1810, she joined the squadron employed in the defence of Cadiz, then besieged by the French army under Marshal Victor, Duke of Belluno.
We have stated at p. 240 of Vol. I. Part I. that the defence of Fort Matagorda, situated opposite Puntales, was entrusted to a party of British troops, seamen, and marines, and that that important post was bravely maintained until it became a heap of rubbish. Mr. Hotham was one of the naval detachment so employed; and the following is an extract of a letter from the military commander, Captain Maclean, of H.M. 94th regiment, to Lieutenant-General Graham (now Lord Lynedoch), dated April 22d, 1810:–
“I cannot sufficiently express to you the gallantry and coolness with which every individual officer, seaman, marine, and soldier, conducted himself during the two months we maintained this post, particularly during the last two days.”
The loss sustained by the navy on the 21st and 22d April, 1810, was 9 men killed, and 22, including two midshipmen, wounded.
In Mar. 1811, the Eagle was sent to the Adriatic, where Mr. Hotham received his first commission, appointing him lieutenant of that ship, and dated Feb. 12th, 1812. He had previously acted in the same capacity on board the Unité frigate. Captain Edwin Henry Chamberlayne, who made honorable mention of him, when reporting the capture of la Persanne French store-ship, mounting 26 long 9-pounders, with a complement of 190 men, from Corfu bound to Trieste, Nov. 29th, 1811[3].
On the 8th June, 1813, the boats of the Elizabeth (74) and Eagle, under Lieutenants Mitchell Roberts, Richard Greenaway, Martin Bennett, and William Hotham, destroyed a two-gun battery at Omago, on the coast of Istria, and brought out four vessels loaded with wine, which had been scuttled near that town. About 100 French soldiers were at the same time driven from thence by the marines of the two ships, under Captain John Hore Graham and Lieutenant Samuel Lloyd. Only one man was wounded in the execution of this service, “and the conduct of all the officers was highly creditable.”
The conspicuous part borne by the Eagle at the capture of Fiume, July 3d, 1813, has been fully noticed at p. 673, et seq. of Vol. I. Part II. On the fourth day afterwards, a party of her seamen and marines, under Lieutenants Greenaway, Hotham, and Lloyd, stormed and carried the fortress of Farasina (mounting five long 18-pounders), disabled the guns, and laid all the works in a heap of ruins. On this occasion, not a man was killed, and Mr. Hudson, midshipman, was the only person wounded.
In the beginning of Aug. 1813, Lieutenant Hotham assisted at the capture and destruction of the batteries of Rovigno, twenty-one sail of merchantmen lying in the harbour, and several ships and vessels on the stocks. “The conduct of the officers, &c. employed on this service,” says Captain Rowley, “merits my warmest encomiums.”
The Eagle was afterwards employed by Rear-Admiral Fremantle in the blockade of Trieste, while the Austrian army under Major-General Count Nugent was harassing Eugene Beauharnois in his retreat from Istria and Croatia. The capture of the arsenal, on the night of Oct. 6th, 1813, has been noticed in our memoir of Captain John Duff Markland, C.B., by whom that service was voluntarily conducted. The subsequent operations against the citadel are thus described by Rear-Admiral Fremantle:–
“On the 11th, the General returned from Gorizia, having obliged the Viceroy to pasH the Isonzo. It was then determined to lay siege to the castle. By the 16th, in the morning, we had twelve guns in two batteries, which opened their fire and continued nearly the whole day; towards evening, the enemy was driven from the windmill hill, which was taken possession of by the Austrian troops, and two howitzers were advanced there. The firing was continued occasionally until noon on the 23d, by which time Captain Rowley had got a 32-pounder within 200 yards of the Schanza, where there was a strong building with one gun, and loop holes in it, standing upon a hill, with a wall round it nearly fourteen feet high, an officer, and 60 men.
“We had had some communication with the castle in the morning, but the truce was broke off at a very short notice by the enemy, who opened on all sides. The 32-pounder was fired upon the Schanza. The first shot the gun recoiled, and, the ground giving way, it fell backwards off the platform, which was six feet above the level. It was fine to see Captain Rowley and his people immediately get a triangle above the work, and the 32-pounder, with its carriage, run up to its place again, under a shower of grape and musketry, which occasioned a severe loss. Towards evening, the enemy in the Schanza held out the white flag, and surrendered to Captain Rowley.
“Having now possession of the Schanza, which commanded the castle and the windmill hill, we set to work upon some advanced batteries within 400 yards of the castle; but the weather was so wet, and the labour so great, that they wore not complete until the morning of the 29th, when the enemy acceded to our altered propositions for surrendering the castle. We were then prepared to have opened with eleven 32-pounders, twelve 18-pounders, four mortars, and four howitzers.
“Every captain, officer, and other person in the squadron has done his duty. Captain Rowley has been, as usual, most prominent on every occasion, I admired the example he shewed at the attack of the Schanza, with the courage and activity of Lieutenants Hotham and Moore, and Mr Hibbert, midshipman of the Eagle[4].” * * * *
From this period until Jan. 1814, Lieutenant Hotham commanded a flotilla employed in the river Po, in co-operation with the Austrian army; and honorable mention is made of him in several official letters from Captain Rowley to Rear-Admiral Freemantle, as well as in a despatch from Count Nugent to Earl Bathurst, then H.M. Secretary of State for the War Department.
The Eagle formed part of the squadron which accompanied Louis XVIII. to his recovered dominions, in April, 1814; and was paid off at Chatham in the course of the following month. Lieutenant Hotham’s promotion to the rank of commander took place June 15th, 1814; on which occasion he was appointed to the Fervent sloop of war.
After witnessing the grand naval review, by the allied monarchs at Spithead, Captain Hotham proceeded to Bermuda and the West Indies, from whence he returned to Portsmouth, where the Fervent was put out of commission, in June 1815. His last appointment was, April 27th, 1824, to the Sappho, of 18 guns, fitting out for the Halifax station, where he received his commission as captain, dated April 4th, 1825.
Agent.– Messrs. Cooke, Halford, & Son.
- ↑ 580, and 581
- ↑ See Vol. I. p. 673, and p. 70 of this vol.
- ↑ See Vol. II. Part II. note †, p. 803.
- ↑ See Suppl. Part II. p. 358.