George Murray (Royal Navy officer, born 1759)

Edit links
This is a good article. Click here for more information.
Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
For the older admiral of the same name, see
George Murray (MP)
.

Sir George Murray
American War of Independence

French Revolutionary Wars

Napoleonic Wars

  • British invasions of the Río de la Plata
Awards
Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath
Naval Gold Medal

Cape St Vincent, Nelson at Copenhagen, and took part in a host of other actions and engagements. Temporarily a captive of the French he was a keen scholar and spent time learning the French language and their naval customs, as well as being a competent surveyor, experience that was to help him in later life. He had a particularly enduring friendship with Nelson, who personally requested his services as his captain of the fleet. It was only chance that prevented Murray from serving as such at Trafalgar. With Murray absent, Nelson declined to appoint a replacement, one biographer reasoning that "none but Murray would do".[1]

Family and early life

George Murray was born in

comte d'Estaing in the summer of 1778.[3]

Home waters

Howe and Murray returned to England in 1778. Howe was disaffected by his experiences of command in North America, and consequently did not bestow patronage on those junior officers under his command, as was the custom. Instead a friend of Murray's father, Captain

First Lord of the Admiralty, John Montagu, 4th Earl of Sandwich. He passed his lieutenant's examination on 19 November 1778, and quickly received his commission on 31 December that year. He was to be second lieutenant aboard the 32-gun HMS Arethusa, under Captain Charles Holmes Everitt.[5] It was to be a short-lived appointment as on 19 March 1779 she ran aground and was wrecked on the Breton coast while chasing a French frigate.[6] Murray was captured and became a prisoner of war, spending the next two years in captivity and occupying himself with the study of the French language and naval regulations. He was released and exchanged when he came to the attention of the French authorities after chastising an American privateersman for wearing a British uniform.[3][5]

East Indies

Murray had made it back to England by early 1781 and received an appointment to the 64-gun

Bailli de Suffren, and went on to face him again with Sir Edward Hughes's fleet off the coast of India at the Battle of Sadras on 15 February 1782, and at the Battle of Providien on 12 April 1782. Murray moved aboard Hughes's flagship, the 74-gun HMS Superb shortly after the engagement at Providien, and went on to take part in the battles of Negapatam and Trincomalee, being wounded in the latter.[3][5]

Murray received his first command on 9 October 1782, that of the

fireship HMS Combustion, but he was promoted to post-captain three days later and appointed to the 22-gun storeship and former Spanish privateer HMS San Carlos.[5] He remained with her during the last engagement between Hughes and de Suffren, the Battle of Cuddalore on 20 June 1783, after which he was transferred to the 64-gun HMS Inflexible for his return to England.[3]

Years of peace

Without active employment following the Peace of Paris and the end of the American War of Independence, Murray spent several years in study, residing in France for a two-year period in order to refine his language skills.[3][5] The Nootka Crisis in June 1790 led to Murray's return to service in command of the 32-gun frigate HMS Triton. He continued in her for the next few years, and by April 1791 he was occupied in surveying the Great Belt, and the approaches into Copenhagen. He spent the remainder of the peace serving at Halifax and Jamaica, returning to England in June 1793 after the outbreak of the French Revolutionary Wars.[5]

French Revolutionary Wars

He was appointed to the 36-gun

Sir John Borlase Warren's squadron. He was present at the action of 23 April 1794 off Guernsey, where Warren's four frigates fought an engagement with three French frigates and a corvette, capturing two frigates and the corvette.[5] He was still in command a year later when he and the Nymphe were engaged in Lord Bridport's victory at the Battle of Groix on 23 June 1795.[3][5] He took advantage of a brief period of shore leave after this to marry Ann Teesdale on 15 September 1795, but was back at sea two weeks later, in command of the 90-gun HMS Formidable.[5]

Jervis and Cape St Vincent

The Battle of Cape St Vincent, 14 February 1797 by Robert Cleveley. Murray's ship Colossus was damaged early in the engagement.

Murray's next assignment was to take command of the 74-gun

Battle of Cape St Vincent on 14 February 1797, where he and Colossus formed up near the centre of the British line. As the British ships broke through the Spanish line and tacked around to engage their van, Spanish Vice-Admiral Joaquin Moreno in the rear saw an opportunity to exploit a weakness in the British formation. Pulling forward in his flagship Principe de Asturias he came across the bows of the British line, cutting between HMS Orion, which had already tacked, and HMS Colossus, which was just preparing to. He then fired a broadside at the vulnerable bows of Colossus, damaging her main foreyard and causing her to miss stays. She began to drift out of the line while Murray and his crew struggled to regain manoeuvrability. Seeing her predicament, Orion dropped back to cover Colossus with a broadside. Despite this setback Colossus only sustained five wounded during the course of the battle, which ended in a British victory.[7]

Loss of the Colossus

Murray continued to serve with Jervis until he was despatched to join

Sir Hyde Parker's Baltic expedition, where it was anticipated that his previous experience in the Baltic would be an asset.[1]

Nelson and Copenhagen

The Battle of Copenhagen, as painted by Nicholas Pocock. Murray was instrumental in leading Nelson's force into the harbour.

Detached with Nelson's expeditionary squadron for the expeditionary assault on Copenhagen on 2 April, Murray was given the task of leading the British force into the harbour, using channels he had helped to chart a decade earlier.[1] She eventually passed by four Danish ships, taking fire from each one, before anchoring opposite the Jylland, which she engaged for the next four hours of the battle.[1][8] By the time the truce was concluded, the Edgar had taken casualties of 31 killed and 104 wounded. During the peace negotiations with the Danish, and the subsequent foray to watch the Swedish forces at Karlskrona, Murray developed a strong rapport with Nelson, who had replaced Parker after the latter's recall to Britain.[1]

Captain of the fleet

With the resumption of hostilities after the

Peace of Amiens, Murray returned to sea in command of the 74-gun HMS Spartiate, but word soon reached him that Nelson had requested that Murray be his captain of the fleet in the Mediterranean.[4] Murray was initially reluctant to accept the offer, and on being asked why, replied that

the nature of the service was such, as very frequently terminated in disagreement between the admiral and the captain; and he should be extremely unwilling to hazard any possible thing that should diminish the regard and respect which he should ever entertain for his lordship.[1]

Nelson's response was to express agreement with Murray that such situations could occur, but reminded him that

on whatever he [Murray] might be called, or whatever measure he might be directed to carry into execution, he never should forget the intimacy which subsisted between them; and even, should anything go contrary to his wishes, he would wave the rank of admiral, and explain, or expostulate with him, as his friend, Murray.[1]

Murray then accepted the post, and remained with Nelson as his captain of the fleet during the blockade of Toulon between 1803 and 1805, and the subsequent chase of Villeneuve and his fleet to the West Indies and back in 1805.[3] He had been promoted to rear-admiral on 23 April 1804, but declined to raise his flag so as to be able to continue on with Nelson. The fleet returned to England in August 1805, where Murray learnt that his father-in-law had died, leaving him as executor of his estates. While Nelson sailed to take up command of the fleet blockading Cadiz, Murray was compelled to remain in England and attend to family affairs.[1] Nelson did not therefore have a captain of the fleet at Trafalgar, for as one biographer stated "none but Murray would do".[1]

Later service

Memorial, Chichester Cathedral

Murray's last operational command was in November 1806, when he was assigned as commander-in-chief of the naval forces involved in the

Mayor of Chichester.[9]

He died suddenly at his home in Chichester on 28 February 1819. His obituary reported that he had gone to bed "in good health, and was seized by a spasmodic affectation in his chest, which terminated his existence at 8 o'clock".

Boulogne in 1859, at the age of 95.[11]

Notes

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Tracy. Who's who in Nelson's Navy. p. 258.
  2. ^ a b c d Tracy. Who's who in Nelson's Navy. p. 256.
  3. ^
    doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/19607. Retrieved 28 November 2010. (Subscription or UK public library membership
    required.)     (subscription required)
  4. ^ a b "Murray, Sir George (1759–1819)". Dictionary of National Biography. 1894. p. 362.
  5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Tracy. Who's who in Nelson's Navy. p. 257.
  6. ^ Colledge. Ships of the Royal Navy. p. 19.
  7. ^ Adkin. The Trafalgar Companion. p. 160.
  8. ^ Adkin. The Trafalgar Companion. p. 466.
  9. ^ "Past Mayors". Chichester City Council. Retrieved 8 May 2016.
  10. The European Magazine, and London Review
    . p. 273.
  11. ^ Tracy. Who's who in Nelson's Navy. p. 259.

References

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=George_Murray_(Royal_Navy_officer,_born_1759)&oldid=1220907952"