Henry Edward Napier (5 March 1789 – 13 October 1853) was a British naval officer and historian.

Family background

He was the fifth son of Colonel the Honourable George Napier, and his second wife,

Lady Sarah Lennox Lady Sarah Lennox (14 February 1745 – August 1826) was the most notorious of the famous Lennox sisters, daughters of Charles Lennox, 2nd Duke of Richmond and Sarah Cadogan. Early life Lady Sarah Lennox was born on 14 February 1745, the sixt ...

, seventh daughter of the 2nd Duke of Richmond, and one of the famed

Lennox sisters The Lennox sisters were four eighteenth-century British aristocrats, the daughters of Charles Lennox, 2nd Duke of Richmond (1701–1750) by his wife Lady Sarah Lennox, Duchess of Richmond and Lennox, Sarah Cadogan (1705–1751). The four sisters ...

. His brothers included General Sir

Charles James Napier General Sir Charles James Napier, ( ; 10 August 178229 August 1853) was an officer and veteran of the British Army's Peninsular and 1812 campaigns, and later a major general of the Bombay Army, during which period he led the British military co ...

Commander-in-Chief, India During the period of the Company and Crown rule in India, the Commander-in-Chief, India (often "Commander-in-Chief ''in'' or ''of'' India") was the supreme commander of the Indian Army from 1833 to 1947. The Commander-in-Chief and most of his ...

and conqueror of

Sindh Sindh ( ; ; , ; abbr. SD, historically romanized as Sind (caliphal province), Sind or Scinde) is a Administrative units of Pakistan, province of Pakistan. Located in the Geography of Pakistan, southeastern region of the country, Sindh is t ...

; Lieutenant-General Sir George Thomas Napier, Governor and Commander of the

Cape of Good Hope The Cape of Good Hope ( ) is a rocky headland on the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic coast of the Cape Peninsula in South Africa. A List of common misconceptions#Geography, common misconception is that the Cape of Good Hope is the southern tip of Afri ...

; and General Sir

William Francis Patrick Napier General Sir William Francis Patrick Napier Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath, KCB (7 December 178512 February 1860) was a British soldier in the British Army and a military historian. Early life Napier was born at Celbridge, County Kild ...

Lieutenant Governor of Guernsey The lieutenant governor of Guernsey is the representative of the British monarch in the Bailiwick of Guernsey, a Crown dependency of the British Crown. The role of the lieutenant governor is to act as the ''de facto'' head of state in Guern ...

, and author of the ''History of the Peninsular War''.

Naval career

Napier entered the

Royal Naval Academy The Royal Naval Academy was a facility established in 1733 in HMNB Portsmouth, Portsmouth Dockyard to train officers for the Royal Navy. The founders' intentions were to provide an alternative means to recruit officers and to provide standardise ...

Portsmouth Dockyard His Majesty's Naval Base, Portsmouth (HMNB Portsmouth) is one of three operating bases in the United Kingdom for the Royal Navy (the others being HMNB Clyde and HMNB Devonport). Portsmouth Naval Base is part of the city of Portsmouth; it is loc ...

on 5 May 1803, and on 20 September 1806 joined the

74-gun The "seventy-four" was a type of two- decked sailing ship of the line, which nominally carried 74 guns. It was developed by the French navy in the 1740s, replacing earlier classes of 60- and 62-gun ships, as a larger complement to the recently de ...

, as a first-class volunteer. In her under the Captains the Honourable Robert Stopford and John Quilliam, he visited the Cape of Good Hope, and as a midshipman took part in the Bombardment of Copenhagen, also assisting in the destruction of Fleckeroe Castle, on the coast of Norway. From December 1808 until September 1811 he served in the

East Indies The East Indies (or simply the Indies) is a term used in historical narratives of the Age of Discovery. The ''Indies'' broadly referred to various lands in Eastern world, the East or the Eastern Hemisphere, particularly the islands and mainl ...

aboard the frigate under Captain Thomas Briggs; the

, flagship of Vice-Admiral William O'Bryen Drury, and the frigate , Captain Hugh Cook. He was appointed acting-lieutenant of the ''Diomede'' on 31 October 1809, receiving his commission on 4 May 1810. In 1812–13 he served aboard the 74-gun , Captain Graham Moore, and the frigates , Captain Richard Hawkins, and , Captain Farmery Predam Epworth, on the North Sea and North American stations. On 7 June 1814, he was promoted to commander aboard the 18-gun sloop at Bermuda; and soon after appointed to the brig-sloop , employed in protecting merchant vessels in the

Bay of Fundy The Bay of Fundy () is a bay between the Canadian provinces of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, with a small portion touching the U.S. state of Maine. It is an arm of the Gulf of Maine. Its tidal range is the highest in the world. The bay was ...

. In August 1815 Napier went on

half-pay Half-pay (h.p.) was a term used in the British Army and Royal Navy of the 18th, 19th and early 20th centuries to refer to the pay or allowance an officer received when in retirement or not in actual service. Past usage United Kingdom In the E ...

, having declined accepting a piece of plate that had been voted to him for his care in the conduct of convoys between the port of

Saint John, New Brunswick Saint John () is a port#seaport, seaport city located on the Bay of Fundy in the province of New Brunswick, Canada. It is Canada's oldest Municipal corporation, incorporated city, established by royal charter on May 18, 1785, during the reign ...

and

Castine, Maine Castine ( ) is a town in Hancock County in eastern Maine, United States.; John Faragher. ''Great and Nobel Scheme''. 2005. p. 68. The population was 1,320 at the 2020 census. Castine is the home of Maine Maritime Academy, a four-year institut ...

. His last appointments were to the at Halifax from January 1821 to July 1823, and to the at Plymouth, for a brief period in 1826. He was promoted to captain on 31 December 1830.

Writing career

Napier was elected a fellow of the

Royal Society The Royal Society, formally The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, is a learned society and the United Kingdom's national academy of sciences. The society fulfils a number of roles: promoting science and its benefits, re ...

on 18 May 1820. His chief work was the ''Florentine History from the earliest Authentic Records to the Accession of Ferdinand the Third, Grandduke of Tuscany,'' in six volumes, published in 1846–47.

Personal life

On 17 November 1823 Napier married his first cousin, Caroline Bennet (died 5 September 1836), in

Florence Florence ( ; ) is the capital city of the Italy, Italian region of Tuscany. It is also the most populated city in Tuscany, with 362,353 inhabitants, and 989,460 in Metropolitan City of Florence, its metropolitan province as of 2025. Florence ...

). She was the illegitimate daughter of his uncle

Charles Lennox, 3rd Duke of Richmond Field marshal (United Kingdom), Field Marshal Charles Lennox, 3rd Duke of Richmond, 3rd Duke of Lennox, 3rd Duke of Aubigny, (22 February 1735 – 29 December 1806), styled Earl of March until 1750, of Goodwood House in Sussex and of Richmond ...

. They had five children: * Augusta Sarah (born 1826) married Frederick Williams-Freeman, grandson of Adm. William Peere Williams-Freeman. * Charles George (20 July 1829 – 2 September 1882) married Susanna Juliana Ricarda Carolin, daughter of Samuel Carolin, on 13 December 1860. They had one son, and two daughters. * Adelaide Harriet Sophia (1831–1832) * Arthur Lennox (1833–1839) * Vice-Adm. Richard Henry (11 March 1836 – 1 March 1903) married twice. Firstly, Mary Dyer in 1861. Secondly, Mary Teresa Priest in 1883. No known issue. Napier died at 62

Cadogan Place Cadogan Place is a street in Belgravia, London. It is named after Earl Cadogan and runs parallel to the lower half of Sloane Street. It gives its name to the extensive Cadogan Place Gardens, private communal gardens maintained for Cadogan re ...

, London, on 13 October 1853.

References

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Napier, Henry Edward 1789 births 1853 deaths Royal Navy captains Royal Navy personnel of the Napoleonic Wars Henry Edward Military personnel from County Kildare Fellows of the Royal Society