John Leake

Sir John Leake

The London Gazette of May 14, 1705, with an account of Leake's return from the Battle of Cabrita

John Leake (born July 4, 1656 in Rotherhithe , † August 21, 1720 in Greenwich ) was an Anglo-British admiral .

Life

Leake was the son of the Royal Navy master gunners Richard Leake and served in the Third Anglo-Dutch War under Edward Spragge . He joined the merchant navy after the war but changed again.

On September 24, 1688 he took command of the HMS Firedrake and took part in the battle of Bantry Bay on May 1, 1689 , where he succeeded in setting the French ship of the line Diamant on fire. Two days after the battle, he was given command of the Dartmouth (40 cannons), with which he participated on July 28, 1689 in the removal of a floating barrier that prevented supplies to the beleaguered Derry . Again Leake was given command of a larger ship, the Oxford (54 guns). Soon afterwards he switched to the HMS Eagle (70 cannons), with which he took part in the naval battle at Barfleur on May 19, 1692 under Admiral Edward Russell .

In July 1693 Leake switched to the HMS Ossory (90 cannons) with which he cruised in the Mediterranean under Russell until the Peace of Rijswijk . This was followed by uses on the HMS Kent , HMS Berwick and the HMS Exeter . With the latter he commanded a fleet of eight ships from July to October 1702, which caused severe damage to the French fishery during the War of the Spanish Succession off the coast of Newfoundland . In December he was appointed Rear Admiral of the Blue and on March 1, 1703, Vice Admiral of the blue.

Under Admiral George Rooke , he took part in the capture of Gibraltar and fought in August 1704 in the Battle of Vélez-Málaga . In March 1705 he defeated the French blockade squadron under Admiral Bernard Desjean in the battle of Cabrita . The possession of Gibraltar was thus secured. At the end of 1705 he took part in the capture of Barcelona and horrified the city in April 1706. In the same year he conquered Alicante and Mallorca .

In 1707 he was promoted to Admiral of the White and assumed command of the Mediterranean , where he succeeded in conquering Sardinia and Menorca in 1708 . In 1708 he was appointed fleet admiral and in 1710 first lord of the admiralty . From 1708 to 1714 he was a Member of Parliament for Rochester . In 1714 he retired.

Leake died in Greenwich on August 21, 1720 and was buried in a church in Stepney . His wife Christiane and son Richard had died before him.

literature

• John Knox Laughton :  Leake, John (1656-1720) . In: Sidney Lee (Ed.): Dictionary of National Biography . Volume 32:  Lambe - Leigh. , MacMillan & Co, Smith, Elder & Co., New York City / London 1892, pp. 317 - 320 (English, (partly bad scans, no OCR yet)).
• John Hattendorf : Leake, Sir John (1656-1720). In: Henry Colin Gray Matthew, Brian Harrison (Eds.): Oxford Dictionary of National Biography , from the earliest times to the year 2000 (ODNB). Oxford University Press, Oxford 2004, ISBN 0-19-861411-X , ( oxforddnb.com license required ), as of January 2011
• Geoffrey Callender , editor of Stephen Martin Leake (1702–1773): The life of Sir John Leake, rear-admiral of Great Britain, 2 volumes, Navy Records Society 1920, volume 1 , volume 2

predecessor	Office	successor
Edward Russell	First Lord of the Admiralty 1710–1712	Thomas Wentworth