Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Warren, Frederick
WARREN, FREDERICK (1775–1848), vice-admiral, born in March 1775, was son of Richard Warren [q. v.], physician to George III, and elder brother of Pelham Warren [q. v.] He was admitted to Westminster school on 15 Jan. 1783, and entered the navy in March 1789, on board the Adamant, flagship of Sir Richard Hughes [q. v.] on the Halifax station. When the Adamant was paid off in 1792, Warren was sent to the Lion with Captain Erasmus Gower [q. v.], and in her made the voyage to China. Shortly after his return, on 24 Oct. 1794, he was confirmed in the rank of lieutenant and appointed to the Prince George. He after wards served in the Jason on the home station, and in the Latona at Newfoundland, where he was promoted on 10 Aug. 1797 to command the Shark sloop. In 1800 he commanded the Fairy in the West Indies, and on 12 May 1801 was promoted to the rank of captain. On the renewal of the war in 1803 he had for three years the command of the sea fencibles of the Dundee district; in November 1806 he was appointed to the Dædalus, and took her out to the West Indies, where in April 1808 he was moved to the Meleager, which was wrecked near Port Royal on 30 July 1808. Warren was acquitted of all blame, and officially complimented on the exertions he had made after the ship struck. In 1809 he commanded the Melpomene in the Baltic for a few months; and on the night of 29–30 May fought a severe action in the Belt with about twenty Danish gunboats, which in a calm or light wind were very formidable antagonists. At daybreak the wind freshened and the gunboats retired; but the Melpomene had lost thirty-four men, killed and wounded; both hull and masts had suffered much damage, and her rigging was cut to pieces. She was shortly afterwards sent to England and paid off. In December Warren was appointed to the 44-gun ship Argo, which he commanded on the Lisbon station and in the Mediterranean for nearly three years. In 1814 he commanded the Clarence of 74 guns in the Channel, and from 1825 to 1830 the Spartiate. He was promoted to be rear-admiral on 22 July 1830; from 1831 to 1834 he was commander-in-chief at the cape of Good Hope, and from 1837 to 1841 admiral-superintendent at Plymouth. He was made a vice-admiral on 23 Nov. 1841, and died at Cosham, near Portsmouth, on 22 March 1848. He married, in 1804, Mary, only daughter of Rear-admiral David Laird of Strathmartine House, Dundee, and had issue. His eldest son, Richard Laird Warren, died an admiral in 1875.
[Barker and Stenning's Westminster School Register; O'Byrne's Naval Biogr. Dict.; Ann. Register, 1848, ii. 222.]