William Mulcaster
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Captain Sir William Howe Mulcaster
Early life
He was the son of Major General
Mulcaster was commissioned as a lieutenant in the Royal Navy in January 1800. In 1809, he was serving as a lieutenant in the sixth-rate vessel HMS Confiance. One of his fellow officers was his future commander, James Lucas Yeo. Confiance played a significant part in the capture of Cayenne, for which Mulcaster received a commemorative sword from the Prince Regent of Portugal and was promoted to commander.
He was appointed to command the brig-rigged sloop-of-war HMS Emulous serving at Halifax, Nova Scotia. Shortly after war with the United States broke out in 1812, Emulous was wrecked on Cape Sable Island, and Mulcaster was recruited for service on the Great Lakes by Yeo (whose frigate, HMS Southampton had also been wrecked shortly before in the Caribbean).
Mulcaster was initially offered command of the flotilla on Lake Erie but he declined on grounds of the scarcity of resources there. Instead, he acted as second in command to Yeo. In that role, he commanded the sloop Royal George in 1813 in several actions on Lake Ontario against the American squadron led by Isaac Chauncey.
Both combatants on Lake Ontario were building progressively larger ships of war. Yeo laid down a
On 2 May 1814, the British fleet and army on Lake Ontario mounted the
Later life
In October 1814, he married Sophia Sawyer Van Cortlandt (1789–1841), the youngest daughter of Colonel Philip Van Cortlandt (1739–1814) and Catherine Ogden (1746–1828) and a descendant of
Mulcaster and his wife Sophia had at least seven children, but only four survived into adulthood. His two surviving sons, William Edward Mulcaster (1820–1887) and William Sydney Smith Mulcaster (1825–1910), both became generals.
In 1831 he received a knighthood and became Naval aide de camp to
He died at Guilford Lawn in Dover on 12 March 1837 of complications of a severe wound he received in the War of 1812.[2] He was buried at St Mary's Church, Bishopsbourne, Kent, and there is a memorial tablet to him in the church.
References
- Hitsman, J. Mackay; Donald E. Graves (1999). The Incredible War of 1812: A Military History (rev. ed.). Toronto: Robin Brass Studio. ISBN 1-896941-13-3.
- Genealogical research carried out by Catherine Plowden, direct descendant.