Henry John Rous

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The Honourable

Henry John Rous
Detail of a portrait of Henry John Rous with George Payne, by G. Thompson
Detail of a portrait of Henry John Rous with George Payne, by G. Thompson
Born(1795-01-23)23 January 1795
London, England[1]
Died19 June 1877(1877-06-19) (aged 82)
London, England
AllegianceUnited Kingdom
Service/branchRoyal Navy
Years of service1808–1835
RankAdmiral
Commands held
Battles/wars

Admiral Henry John Rous (23 January 1795 – 19 June 1877) was an officer of the British Royal Navy, who served during the Napoleonic Wars, and was later a Member of Parliament and a leading figure in horse racing.

Biography

Family background and education

Rous was the second son of John Rous, 1st Earl of Stradbroke, and was educated at Westminster School, and Dr. Burney's Academy.[2] His elder brother was John Rous, 2nd Earl of Stradbroke, and his half-sister married Vice-Admiral Sir Henry Hotham.[3]

Naval career

Aged just 13, Rous entered the Navy on 28 January 1808 as first-class volunteer on board the

Adriatic campaign.[3]

There Rous took part in numerous actions. On the night of 31 August 1812 he was involved in the

broached and capsized in heavy weather around midnight, only kept afloat by the buoyancy of her cargo. Rous and his prize crew were eventually rescued by another prize around 4 a.m. In 1814, Rous participated in the capture of Rovigno, the island of Lesina, and the fortresses of Cattaro and Ragusa.[3]

On 18 May 1814, he was promoted to lieutenant and, from August 1814 until December 1815, served aboard the frigate

brig-sloop Sappho at Cork from November 1821, and the sixth-rate Hind in the Mediterranean from February 1822.[3]

Rous was promoted to

regatta. In August 1828, he explored the Tweed, and explored and named the Richmond River, both in north-eastern New South Wales.[4] The area between those rivers is known as Rous County, although counties are not widely recognised in Australia and are mainly used for cadastral purposes. While in Moreton Bay, he named the Rous Channel, Dunwich, and Stradbroke Island, after his family titles, and influenced the naming of Ipswich, Queensland
.

Rous returned to England in August 1829 and, from November 1834, commanded the frigate Pique.[3] His ship ran ashore on the coast of Labrador in the Strait of Belle Isle in September 1835[4] and was greatly damaged. Rous, however, brought her across the Atlantic Ocean with a sprung foremast and without keel, forefoot or rudder, with the ship making 23 in (0.58 m) of water an hour.[5][6]

Thoroughbred horse racing

Illustration of Admiral Rous taken from James Rice's History of the English Turf (1879)

His father owned a

2,000 Guineas with the colt Tigris. Rous, always fond of the sport, became a steward of the Jockey Club in 1838, a position he held, almost uninterrupted, until his death. In 1855, he was appointed public handicapper. In that role he introduced the weight-for-age scale.[7] For many years, he managed the stables of the Duke of Bedford at Newmarket, and wrote On the Laws and Practice of Horse Racing that procured for him the title of the Blackstone of the Turf.[6]

The Rous Memorial Stakes was named in his honour.

Political career

In the general election of July 1841, he was elected as Conservative Member of Parliament (MP) for Westminster and, in February 1846, The Sir Robert Peel appointed him Fourth Naval Lord, in which post he served only until July.[8] The appointment triggered a by-election, which Rous lost to the Liberal candidate, George de Lacy Evans, whom he had defeated in 1841.[5]

Though no longer an active serving officer, Rous's seniority saw him promoted to rear admiral on 17 December 1852, to vice admiral on 5 January 1858,[9] and to admiral on the Retired List on 6 June 1863.[10]

Admiral Rous died at 13 Berkeley Square in London on 19 June 1877.[5] He is buried at Kensal Green Cemetery, London.[11]

See also

References

  1. ^ https://www.pdavis.nl/ShowBiog.php?id=1721
  2. ^ "Admiral Rous". Australian Town and Country Journal. NSW: National Library of Australia. 8 September 1877. p. 13. Retrieved 5 February 2013.
  3. ^ a b c d e f O'Byrne, William Richard (1849). "Rous, Henry John" . A Naval Biographical Dictionary . John Murray – via Wikisource.
  4. ^
    ISSN 1833-7538
    . Retrieved 30 March 2007.
  5. ^ a b c Henry John Rous at Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
  6. ^ a b  One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Rous, Henry John". Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 23 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 774.
  7. ^ Wood, Greg (3 April 2006). "Horse racing: End of an era as Jockey Club falls on own sword". The Guardian. Retrieved 8 November 2013.
  8. ^ Sainty, J. C. (1975). "Lord High Admiral and Commissioners of the Admiralty 1660-1870". Office-Holders in Modern Britain. 4: 18–31. Archived from the original on 7 October 2014. Retrieved 8 November 2013.
  9. ^ The Navy List (corrected to December 1862). London: J. Murray. 1862. p. 6. Retrieved 8 November 2013.
  10. ^ The Navy List (corrected to December 1875). London: J. Murray. 1876. p. 563. Retrieved 8 November 2013.
  11. ^ Paths of Glory. Friends of Kensal Green Cemetery. 1997. p. 86.

External links

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Parliament of the United Kingdom
Preceded by Member of Parliament for Westminster
1841–1846
With: John Temple Leader 		Succeeded by
Military offices
Preceded by Fourth Naval Lord
1846 		Succeeded by
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