John Pascoe Grenfell

Admiral John Pascoe Grenfell, about 1860

Grenfell's signature

John Pascoe Grenfell (born September 20, 1800 in Battersea , London, † March 20, 1869 ) was born in England and was admiral of the Brazilian Navy and diplomat of the Brazilian Empire .

1800 to 1826

Grenfell was in London district of Battersea born. At the age of 11 he went to sea for the East India Company , and his travels took him to India several times . Grenfell probably also served in the Royal Navy . In 1819 he entered the service of the Republic of Chile and was involved in the Chilean War of Independence under the command of Thomas Cochrane, 10th Earl of Dundonald . He achieved the rank of lieutenant . It is worth mentioning his participation in a commando operation to board the Spanish frigate Esmeralda on February 5, 1820, Grenfell was seriously injured. Only three years later he held the rank of frigate captain . With Cochrane he took part in the fighting of the Brazilian War of Independence against Portugal from 1823 . He personally distinguished himself in his successful tactical maneuver for the handover of the Portuguese city and fortress Pará . Grenfell lost his right arm in a skirmish off Buenos Aires in the Argentine-Brazilian War , in which he was also involved under the command of a Commander Norton, on July 29, 1826, Grenfell returned to England to recover.

1827 to 1851

Grenfell traveled back to South America in 1828, he married Maria Dolores Masini in Montevideo in 1829 , with whom he had eight children. Sir John Grenfell Maxwell was one of his grandsons. In the years 1835/36 he was involved with a small flotilla in the fight against rebels on the lakes of Rio Grande do Sul , he had a share in their ultimate task. In 1841 he was promoted to rear admiral. Five years later he was appointed to the Brazilian Consul General in England and returned to where he resided in Liverpool . In 1848 he was involved in the rescue of passengers and crew of the Ocean Monarch , he happened to be near the scene of the accident on test drives of a warship built for Brazil in England.

1851/52 until the end of his life

Depiction of the breakthrough of Tonelero under Grenfell's command, painting from around 1880

In 1851 Grenfell returned again on the occasion of the war that broke out between Brazil and Argentina and again took over a flotilla in the Brazilian Navy. He was involved in operations on the Río Paraná , where under his command on December 17, 1851 with six corvettes and one brig, the decisive breakthrough of the passage secured by Argentine artillery at Tonelero was achieved. After the peace treaty, Grenfell was promoted to vice admiral and then to admiral , and he was also awarded two high Brazilian orders, the Order of the Rose and the Order of the Southern Cross. Grenfell returned to Liverpool in 1852 and served as consul general until his death on March 20, 1869.

literature

• John Knox Laughton: Grenfell, John Pascoe in Dictionary of National Biography , Volume 23, London 1885–1900, en: Wikisource
• CS Stuart: Brazil and La Plata: The personal record of a cruise , GP Putnam & Co., New York 1856, Google-books, pp. 335f.