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James Clephan
Captain James Clephan (1768–1851) was a Royal Navy officer who served as a lieutenant at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805. He rose from the ranks to become a post-captain. A flag presented to him after the battle by the crew of the ship on which he served at Trafalgar was sold at auction for £384,000 on Trafalgar Day 2009. Biography Born in Scoonie in Fife, Scotland in 1768, Clephan was originally a weaver but joined the Merchant navy when the weaving industry went into decline. He was press ganged into the Royal Navy on 23 July 1794 aged 26. Beginning as aboard HMS ''Sibyl'', he then made on HMS ''Doris'' and master's mate on 10 October 1796. He was promoted to Midshipman on 7 January 1801 and was promoted to lieutenant on 31 July 1801 for distinguished conduct during the successful capture of the French corvette ''Chevrette'' at Brest. [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Post-captain
Post-captain or post captain is an obsolete alternative form of the rank of captain in the Royal Navy. The term "post-captain" was descriptive only; it was never used as a title in the form "Post-Captain John Smith". The term served to distinguish those who were captains by rank from: * Officers in command of a naval vessel, who were (and still are) addressed as captain regardless of rank; * Commanders, who received the title of captain as a courtesy, whether they currently had a command or not (e.g. the fictional Captain Jack Aubrey in '' Master and Commander'' or the fictional Captain Horatio Hornblower in '' Hornblower and the Hotspur''). This custom is now defunct. In the Royal Navy of the 18th and 19th centuries, an officer might be promoted from commander to captain, but not have a command. Until the officer obtained a command, he was "on the beach" and on half-pay. An officer "took post" or was "made post" when he was first commissioned to command a vessel. Usually ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
HMS Doris (1795)
HMS ''Doris'' was a 36-gun fifth-rate frigate of the Royal Navy, launched on 31 August 1795. which saw service in the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. ''Doris'' was built by Cleveley, of Gravesend. Service She entered service in November 1795, operating as part of the Channel Fleet during the Napoleonic Wars. Her first captain was the Hon. Charles Jones, who in 1797 became Lord Ranelagh. In June 1796, ''Doris'' and captured the French corvette ''Légère'', of twenty-two 9-pounder guns and 168 men. ''Légère'' had left Brest on 4 June in company with three frigates. During her cruise she had captured six prizes. However, on 23 June she encountered the two British frigates at . After a 10-hour chase the British frigates finally caught up with her; a few shots were exchanged and then ''Légère'' struck. The Navy took into her service as HMS ''Legere''. In January 1797 ''Doris'' shared with and in the capture of the French privateer ''Eclair''. ''Unicorn'' was ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Union Jack
The Union Jack or Union Flag is the ''de facto'' national flag of the United Kingdom. The Union Jack was also used as the official flag of several British colonies and dominions before they adopted their own national flags. It is sometimes asserted that the term ''Union Jack'' properly refers only to naval usage, but this assertion was dismissed by the Flag Institute in 2013 after historical investigations. The origins of the earlier flag of Great Britain date from 1606. James VI and I, King James VI of Scotland had inherited the English and Irish thrones in 1603 as James I, thereby Union of the Crowns, uniting the crowns of Kingdom of England, England, Kingdom of Scotland, Scotland, and Kingdom of Ireland, Ireland in a personal union, although Scotland and England remained separate states until the Treaty of Union took effect in 1707. On 12 April 1606, a new flag to represent the regal union between these two nations was specified in a royal decree, according to which the fla ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Battle Of The Nile
The Battle of the Nile (also known as the Battle of Aboukir Bay; ) was fought between the Royal Navy and the French Navy at Abu Qir Bay, Aboukir Bay in Ottoman Egypt, Egypt between 1–3 August 1798. It was the climax of the Mediterranean campaign of 1798, which had started three months earlier after a large French fleet sailed from Toulon to Alexandria carrying an expeditionary force under Napoleon. A British fleet, led by Rear-Admiral Horatio Nelson, 1st Viscount Nelson, Sir Horatio Nelson, decisively defeated a French fleet under Vice-Admiral François-Paul Brueys d'Aigalliers, which had escorted Napoleon's army to Egypt. Napoleon sought to French invasion of Egypt and Syria, invade Egypt as the first step in a campaign against Company rule in India, British India, as part of a greater effort to drive Britain out of the French Revolutionary Wars. As Napoleon's expeditionary force crossed the Mediterranean, it was pursued by a British fleet under Nelson who had been sent fr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
HMS Spartiate (1798)
The ''Spartiate'' was originally a France, French 74-gun ship of the line, launched in 1797. In 1798, she took part in the Battle of the Nile, where she became one of the nine ships captured by the Royal Navy. In 1805, HMS ''Spartiate'' fought at the Battle of Trafalgar under Francis Laforey. With , she forced the surrender of the Spanish ship , of 80 guns. Casualties were three killed (two seamen & one boy), and twenty wounded (the boatswain [Clarke], two Midshipmen [Bellairs & Knapman], one Marine [William Parsons] and sixteen sailors), according to the three logs (Captain's log, Ship's log, Master's log). On board during the Trafalgar action was First-Lieutenant James Clephan, who was presented with the ship's Union Jack by the crew after the battle as a mark of their esteem. The flag, recently found in a drawer of one of the descendants of James Clephan, is regarded as one of very few surviving Union Flags from the Battle of Trafalgar, and probably the best preserved. Wit ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Peace Of Amiens
The Treaty of Amiens (, ) temporarily ended hostilities between France, the Spanish Empire, and the United Kingdom at the end of the War of the Second Coalition. It marked the end of the French Revolutionary Wars; after a short peace it set the stage for the Napoleonic Wars. Britain gave up most of its recent conquests; France was to evacuate Naples and Egypt. Britain retained Ceylon (Sri Lanka) and Trinidad. It was signed in the Hôtel de Ville (City Hall) of Amiens on 25 March 1802 (4 Germinal X in the French Revolutionary calendar) by Joseph Bonaparte and Charles Cornwallis, 1st Marquess Cornwallis as a "Definitive Treaty of Peace". The consequent peace lasted only one year (18 May 1803) and was the only period of general peace in Europe between 1793 and 1814. Under the treaty, Britain recognised the French Republic. Together with the Treaty of Lunéville (1801), the Treaty of Amiens marked the end of the Second Coalition, which had waged war against Revolutionary Fra ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
HMS Namur (1756)
HMS ''Namur'' was a 90-gun second-rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy, built at Chatham Dockyard to the draught specified by the 1745 Establishment as amended in 1750, and launched on 3 March 1756. HMS ''Namur''’s battle honours surpass even those of the more famous HMS ''Victory''. History ''Namur'' was the flagship of Vice-Admiral Edward Boscawen in the capture of Louisburg in 1758. General James Wolfe had sailed across the Atlantic in ''Namur'' on this occasion before his capture of Quebec. Also on this journey was 6th Lieutenant Michael Henry Pascal, with his slave and servant Olaudah Equiano (called Gustavus Vasser at the time - this was the slave name given him by Pascal). In his book, Equiano wrote that the ceremony of surrender was "the most beautiful procession on the water I ever saw", and gives more detail of the occasion. In 1758, fifteen ''Namur'' sailors were tried and condemned to death by hanging for mutiny; they had protested to be replaced aboard ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
William Cornwallis
Admiral Sir William Cornwallis, (20 February 17445 July 1819) was a Royal Navy officer. He was the brother of Charles Cornwallis, 1st Marquess Cornwallis, British commander at the siege of Yorktown. Cornwallis took part in a number of decisive battles including the siege of Louisbourg in 1758, when he was 14, and the Battle of the Saintes but is best known as a friend of Lord Nelson and as the commander-in-chief of the Channel Fleet during the Napoleonic Wars. He is depicted in the Horatio Hornblower novel, ''Hornblower and the Hotspur''. His affectionate contemporary nickname from "the ranks" was Billy Blue, and a sea shanty was written during his period of service, reflecting the admiration his men had for him. Early life William Cornwallis was born 20 February 1744. His father was Charles, the fifth baron and first earl Cornwallis, and his mother was Elizabeth, daughter of Charles Townshend, 2nd Viscount Townshend. William was the younger brother of General Charles Cornw ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Times
''The Times'' is a British Newspaper#Daily, daily Newspaper#National, national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its modern name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper ''The Sunday Times'' (founded in 1821), are published by Times Media, since 1981 a subsidiary of News UK, in turn wholly owned by News Corp. ''The Times'' and ''The Sunday Times'' were founded independently and have had common ownership only since 1966. It is considered a newspaper of record in the UK. ''The Times'' was the first newspaper to bear that name, inspiring numerous other papers around the world. In countries where these other titles are popular, the newspaper is often referred to as or , although the newspaper is of national scope and distribution. ''The Times'' had an average daily circulation of 365,880 in March 2020; in the same period, ''The Sunday Times'' had an average weekly circulation of 647,622. The two ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Brest, France
Brest (; ) is a port, port city in the Finistère department, Brittany (administrative region), Brittany. Located in a sheltered bay not far from the western tip of a peninsula and the western extremity of metropolitan France, Brest is an important harbour and the second largest French military port after Toulon. The city is located on the western edge of continental France. With 139,456 inhabitants (2020), Brest forms Lower Brittany, Western Brittany's largest functional area (France), metropolitan area (with a population of 370,000 in total), ranking third behind only Nantes and Rennes in the whole of historic Brittany, and the List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, 25th most populous city in France (2019); moreover, Brest provides services to the one million inhabitants of Western Brittany. Although Brest is by far the largest city in Finistère, the ''Prefectures in France, préfecture'' (administrative seat) of the department is in the much smaller town of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Corvette
A corvette is a small warship. It is traditionally the smallest class of vessel considered to be a proper (or " rated") warship. The warship class above the corvette is that of the frigate, while the class below was historically that of the sloop-of-war. The modern roles that a corvette fulfills include coastal patrol craft, missile boat and fast attack craft. These corvettes are typically between 500 and 2,000 tons. Recent designs of corvettes may approach 3,000 tons and include a hangar to accommodate a helicopter, having size and capabilities that overlap with smaller frigates. However unlike contemporary frigates, a modern corvette does not have sufficient endurance or seaworthiness for long voyages. The word "corvette" is first found in Middle French, a diminutive of the Dutch word ''corf'', meaning a "basket", from the Latin ''corbis''. The rank " corvette captain", equivalent in many navies to " lieutenant commander", derives from the name of this type of ship. The ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
French Navy
The French Navy (, , ), informally (, ), is the Navy, maritime arm of the French Armed Forces and one of the four military service branches of History of France, France. It is among the largest and most powerful List of navies, naval forces in the world recognised as being a blue-water navy. The French Navy is capable of operating globally and conducting expeditionary missions, maintaining a significant Standing French Navy Deployments, overseas presence. The French Navy is one of eight naval forces currently operating Fixed-wing aircraft, fixed-wing aircraft carriers,Along with the United States Navy, U.S., Royal Navy, U.K., People's Liberation Army Navy, China, Russian Navy, Russia, Italian Navy, Italy, Indian Navy, India, and Spanish Navy, Spain with its flagship being the only Nuclear marine propulsion, nuclear-powered aircraft carrier outside the United States Navy, and one of two non-American vessels to use Aircraft catapult, catapults to launch aircraft. Founded in the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
