June 3rd Richard Darton Thomas (Birth)

     

 

Saltash – born Admiral Richard Darton Thomas (1777 – 1857) joined the Royal Navy at the age of twelve, initially serving on HMS Cumberland, and went on to serve in both the French Revolutionary and the Napoleonic Wars. In the 1840s, he became Commander-in-Chief, Pacific.

On enlisting, Thomas sailed to the West Indies where he transferred to HMS Blanche under the command of Captain Robert Murray, and was rated as an Able Seaman before joining HMS Nautilus as a midshipman on which he served for two years.  In the Napoleonic War he served in the Mediterranean and was sent ashore to man a battery in Corsica. 

At the end of the war, he served in Nova Scotia and was given command of HMS Chichester in 1803.  He began his return to England on the packet ship Lady Hobart which was intercepted and attacked by the French Schooner, L’ Aimable Julie, which was captured. Proceeding to England, the two ships hit an iceberg and the crews of both ships crammed into two small boats and returned to North America covering an extraordinary 350 miles in a matter of weeks despite heavy rain, gales and thick fog. 

Thomas served in the Peninsular War, in the blockades of Marseilles and Toulon, and at the Battle of Trafalgar before being invalided out.  Promoted to Rear-Admiral in 1837, he served as Commander-in-Chief (Pacific), Vice Admiral (1848) and Admiral (1854) and died at Stonehouse in 1857.

 

 

 

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