Edward Pelham Brenton
Edward Pelham Brenton | |
---|---|
Born | 20 July 1774 Rhode Island |
Died | 13 April 1839 York Street, London | (aged 64)
Allegiance | United Kingdom |
Service/ | Royal Navy |
Years of service | 1788 to 1815 |
Rank | Royal Navy Captain |
Battles/wars | French Revolutionary Wars Napoleonic Wars |
Other work | author of Naval History of Great Britain from the Year 1783 to 1822 |
Captain Edward Pelham Brenton
Brenton was born in 1774 in
At the outbreak of the
Historical career
Following his time in the Navy, Brenton became a keen if controversial historian, publishing his five volume Naval History of Great Britain from the Year 1783 to 1822 in 1823 and the Life and Correspondence of John, Earl of St. Vincent in 1838. Brenton's works were controversial, because he rarely attempted to sift fact from rumour, provoking an outcry from those affected by these, often inaccurate, revelations. Particularly scathing of Brenton was William James, whose alternative history of the naval campaigns of the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars was published in 1827. James was a political rival of Brenton and a civilian who had never served in the Navy, and the men exchanged very public disagreements over points of fact.[1]
Brenton's other passion was for charitable works, publishing many pamphlets and setting up schemes to aid the poor, particularly the "Society for the Relief of Shipwrecked Mariners" and the "Children's Friend Society",[2] neither of which achieved their aims and provoked criticism of Brenton's methods. This experience left him bitter in the years approaching his death in April 1839 at his home in York Street, London. He was buried at St Marylebone Parish Church, with his wife and 100 boys of the Children's Friend Society among the mourners.[1]
The year before his death, he was appointed a Companion of the Order of the Bath (CB) in the 1838 Coronation Honours.[3]
Works
- Naval History of Great Britain from the Year 1783 to 1836[4]
- Life and Correspondence of John, Earl of St. Vincent[5]
References
- ^ Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, J. K. Laughton, (subscription required), Retrieved 18 December 2008
- ^ Frith, Marion (3 October 1993). "The Migrant Street Kids". The Canberra Times. Canberra, Australia. p. 23. Retrieved 7 January 2020.
- ^ "No. 19638". The London Gazette. 20 July 1838. p. 1660.
- ^ Brenton, Edward Pelham (1837). Naval History of Great Britain from the Year 1783 to 1836. London: Henry Colburn. Retrieved 7 January 2020.
- ^ Brenton, Edward Pelham (1838). Life And Correspondence Of John, Earl Of St Vincent. London: Henry Colburn. Retrieved 7 January 2020.