Chaloner Ogle
Sir Chaloner Ogle (* around 1681 in St. Kitts , † 1750 in London ) was an admiral in the British Royal Navy .
Life
Little is known about the early career of the naval officer, who was born around 1681. In the War of the Spanish Succession , he was taken prisoner by the French in 1706 when he had to surrender to enemy ships with his ship HMS Deal Castle (24 cannons).
He achieved general fame after he was sent to West Africa in 1721 as commander of the small ship of the line HMS Swallow (60 cannons) to fight pirates crossing there . On February 21, 1722, he met the three-ship fleet of the pirate captain Bartholomew Roberts off Cape Lopez and defeated them with the help of a skillful deception. Roberts was killed in this battle. 254 men of his crew were captured, of which 169 were indicted and sentenced at Cape Coast Castle in one of the largest pirate trials of the English Admiralty, 52 of them to death. Ogle was raised to personal nobility for this achievement in May 1723 as a Knight Bachelor . He was the only English seaman who was publicly honored for his services in the fight against pirate troubles.
When the War of the Austrian Succession broke out in 1740, he was deployed as Rear Admiral in the Mediterranean , later in his home waters around Great Britain, and then on board the HMS Cumberland (80 cannons) he led an extensive naval formation in the Caribbean , which led the operations of Vice Admiral Edward Vernon against the Spaniards should support. This resulted in an exchange of fire with a French association near St. Kitts on December 27 , which led to considerable diplomatic resentment with France, which at that time was still at peace with Great Britain. The exact circumstances of this incident are unknown. Under Vernon he took part in the unsuccessful attacks on Cartagena and Cuba in 1741 ; against his advice, an attack on Panama was abandoned in 1742 . How much the defeats burdened the officers in charge is shown by the fact that the otherwise apparently very level-headed Ogle had to answer in court for an assault on Governor Trelawney of Jamaica , which, however, had no negative effects on his further career. After the replacement of Vernon after these failures, Ogle was given supreme command in the Caribbean in 1742. Due to a lack of secrecy, however, the attacks he ordered on La Guaira and Puerto Cabello (today Venezuela ) also failed in 1743 with considerable losses. In 1744 he was replaced by Vice Admiral Thomas Davers . In 1745 he sat, meanwhile promoted to admiral , before the court martial against a number of officers who were accused of misconduct in connection with the sea battle at Toulon . From 1746 to 1750 he was an MP for Rochester in the House of Commons . In 1749 he replaced Sir John Norris as naval admiral and thus reached the highest military rank in the Royal Navy. Sir Chaloner Ogle died in London in 1750 . He was buried in Twickenham , where his tomb is preserved in St. Mary's Church.
literature
- William Laird Clowes: The Royal Navy. A History from the Earliest Times to the present . 7 volumes. Chatham, London 1996, ISBN 1-86176-010-8 , (Edition reprinted by Sampson Low, Marston and Co., London 1897-1903).
Individual evidence
- ^ William Arthur Shaw: The Knights of England. Volume 2, Sherratt and Hughes, London 1906, p. 282.
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Ogle, Chaloners |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | British Admiral in the Royal Navy |
| DATE OF BIRTH | 1681 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | St. Kitts |
| DATE OF DEATH | 1750 |
| Place of death | London |