Henry Dundas Trotter

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Henry Dundas Trotter (1802–1859) was a Scottish officer of the

rear-admiral
.

Henry Dundas Trotter, portrait around 1833

Early life

The third son of Alexander Trotter of Dreghorn, near Edinburgh, he was born on 19 September 1802. He entered the Royal Naval College at Portsmouth in 1815.

Career

In February 1818 joined the

Isle of Pines. He afterwards served in the Bellette and Rattlesnake, and on 20 February 1826 was made commander into the Britomart
sloop.

In July 1830 he commissioned the

Lord Palmerston, then foreign secretary, agreed that the schooner should be returned to Lisbon. Trotter was called on to fit her out at his own expense. At Plymouth
, however, the captains of the ships there sent parties of men who completed her refit free of cost to Trotter; and the Admiralty promoted him to post rank on 16 September 1835.

For a few months in 1838 Trotter was flag-captain to

Sir Philip Durham at Portsmouth. In 1840 he was appointed captain of the Albert steamer, commander of the Niger expedition of 1841, and chief of the commission authorised to conclude treaties of commerce with the local rulers. The squadron of three small steamers sailed from England in May 1841, and entered the Niger River on 13 August. In less than three weeks the other two vessels were incapacitated by fever, and obliged to return (see William Allen. Trotter in the Albert struggled on as far as Egga
, where, on 3 October, he was prostrated by the fever; and, as the greater part of his ship's company was also down with it, he was obliged to turn back. He succeeded, however, in establishing some treaties.

The admiralty promoted all the junior officers of the expedition, and in the following years offered Trotter the

governorship of New Zealand in 1843, the command of an Arctic expedition in 1844, and the command of the Indian Navy in 1846. The state of his health, however, led him to refuse these offers, and it was not until the outbreak of the Crimean War
that he accepted employment. He was then appointed commodore at the Cape of Good Hope, a post which he held for three years, during which time he succeeded in establishing the Cape Town Sailors' Home.

On 19 March 1857 Trotter became a rear-admiral on the retired list.

Later life

He died suddenly in London on 14 July 1859, and was buried in Kensal Green Cemetery.[3]

Personal life

He married, in November 1835, Charlotte, second daughter of Major-General James Pringle of the East India Company's service.

See also

  • O'Byrne, William Richard (1849). "Trotter, Henry Dundas" . A Naval Biographical Dictionary . John Murray – via Wikisource.

References

  1. ^ Charles Ellms, The Pirates Own Book (2008 reprint), p. 129; Google Books.
  2. ^ Benjamin Homans, Army and Navy Chronicle, Volume 1 (1835), p. 102; Google Books.
  3. ^ Paths of Glory. Friends of Kensal Green Cemetery. 1997. p. 100.
Attribution

 This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: "Trotter, Henry Dundas". Dictionary of National Biography. London: Smith, Elder & Co. 1885–1900.

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