John Jervis, 1st Earl of St. Vincent

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John Jervis, 1769
Sir John Jervis, around 1795

John Jervis, 1st Earl of St. Vincent , GCB PC (born January 9, 1735 in Meaford, Staffordshire , † March 14, 1823 in Rochetts ) was a British admiral .

Life

John Jervis entered the Navy as a boy (1749), took part in the conquest of Quebec in 1759 as a commander ( Battle of the Plains of Abraham ) and became captain in 1760. As commander of the ship of the line Foudroyant of 80 cannons, he gained great fame in the American War of Independence , namely on June 27, 1778 in the battle of Ouessant .

After he had succeeded in conquering the French Pegase in 1782 , Jervis was accepted as a Knight Companion in the Bath Order and thus elevated to the knighthood . After the peace of 1783 he was elected to the House of Commons , where he joined the Whigs . In 1787 he became rear admiral; the following year Jervis married his cousin Martha Parker, the marriage remained childless.

In 1793 he was promoted to Vice Admiral and Commander in Chief in the West Indies, where he conquered the French colonies of Martinique and Guadeloupe the following year . In 1795 he became admiral and commander in chief of the Mediterranean fleet .

In the naval battle of Cape St. Vincent on February 14, 1797, Jervis defeated the Spanish fleet of 27 ships of the line and ten frigates at the head of 15 ships of the line and four frigates and was made Earl of St. Vincent and Baron Jervis , of Meaford in the County of Stafford. He prevented the mutinies of Spithead and Nore from encroaching on his fleet by mercilessly demanding an unprecedented discipline and, if necessary, enforcing it with the then usual punishments.

After he had to give up the naval command because of his poor health, he was in the Addington Ministry from 1801 to 1804 First Lord of the Admiralty (Minister of the Navy). The following remarkable sentence has come down to us from a letter to the Board of Admiralty in 1801:

“I am not saying now, gentlemen, that the French will not come. I'm just saying that they won't come across the sea. "

In 1801 he was also given the title Viscount St. Vincent , which received the special award note because of the childlessness of Jervis that he could pass to the children of his sister Mary (around 1737-1828) in the absence of an heir. From 1806 to 1807 Jervis was Commander-in-Chief of the Canal Fleet, in 1811 he resigned from active service and only spoke in the House of Lords about naval affairs until 1810. In 1815 he was named Knight Grand Cross of the Order of Bath.

Due to his poor health and the death of his wife Martha in 1816, he withdrew more and more from public life. In the course of George IV's coronation in 1821, he was appointed to the highest rank in the Royal Navy , Admiral of the Fleet . He died on March 14, 1823 in Rochetts. Since he remained childless, his nephew Edward Jervis Ricketts inherited him only as Viscount St. Vincent , the other two titles expired.

Honor

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Ronald Andidora: Iron Admirals. Naval Leadership in the Twentieth Century. Greenwood Publishing Group, 2000, ISBN 978-0-313-31266-3 , p. 3.

Web links and sources

predecessor Office successor
New title created Earl of St. Vincent
1797-1823 		Title expired
New title created Viscount St. Vincent
1801-1823 		Edward Jervis
George Spencer First Lord of the Admiralty
1801–1804 		Henry Dundas
personal data
SURNAME Jervis, John, Earl of St. Vincent
ALTERNATIVE NAMES St. Vincent, John Jervis, 1st Earl of; Jervis, John
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British admiral
DATE OF BIRTH January 9, 1735
PLACE OF BIRTH Meaford, Staffordshire
DATE OF DEATH March 14, 1823
Place of death Rochetts