Richard Charles Mayne

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Richard Charles Mayne , CB , FRGS (* 1835 in London ; † 29 May 1892 ibid) was a British naval officer, explorer and politician.

origin

He came from an Anglo-Irish family and was the son of Sir Richard Mayne (the first police chief of the Metropolitan Police ) and the grandson of Judge Edward Mayne .

Naval career

He attended Eton College and joined the Royal Navy in 1847 .

Exploration of British Columbia

1856 was posted with the rank of lieutenant of the nautical expedition to the exploration of Vancouver Island and British Columbia . On this expedition, which from 1857 to 1859 had the aim of exploring the coasts of British Columbia, Mayne sailed with Captain George Henry Richards on the ships HMS Plumper and HMS Hecate . There he was assigned to the Royal Engineers under Colonel Richard Moody and tasked with researching and mapping the previously unknown areas of the colony. His diary of this exploration is still one of the main sources of historical research of the colony of British Columbia , just like that of his Royal Engineers colleague Lieutenant Henry Spencer Palmer. Mayne Island within the Gulf Islands was named after him, and Hecate Strait after his ship. For his services he was promoted to Commander in 1860 and returned to England. In 1862 he was given command of the HMS Eclipse . He took part in the New Zealand Wars in New Zealand . In 1863 he was badly wounded and returned to England exhausted. For his services he was Mentioned in Despatches and promoted to the rank of Captain . In 1867 he was named Companion of the Order of the Bath .

Expedition to the Strait of Magellan

He commanded the HMS Nassau while exploring the Strait of Magellan in the years 1866–1869. Robert Oliver Cunningham was on board as a naturalist . Charles Darwin asked the Department of the Navy to commission Mayne to collect some boatloads of fossil bones from extinct four-legged friends. Admiral Bartholomew James Sulivan had previously discovered an astonishingly large collection of fossil bones near the Strait of Magellan. These remains apparently belonged to a much older period than those collected by Darwin on his voyage with HMS Beagle and other naturalists, and were therefore of great interest to science. Many of the fossils were collected with the help of the hydrographer Captain Richards and are in the British Museum . Mayne became a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society .

After his marriage in 1870 he only went to sea for a short time as the commanding officer of HMS Invincible . He retired as Rear Admiral in 1879 .

British North Borneo Company

1881 Mayne was in the Board of Directors of British North Borneo Provisional Association Ltd appointed. In the same year the provisional company became the North Borneo Chartered Company through a royal charter . Mayne was one of the investors in the new company and got a seat on the company's board of directors. The province of Mayne in British North Borneo was named after him.

Political career

In 1886 he was as a deputy for the constituency of Pembroke and Haverfordwest in Wales in the House of Commons voted. He held the mandate until his death.

Private life

In 1870 he married Sabine Dent, daughter of Sir Thomas Dent (1796–1872), founder of Dent & Co. , Hong Kong , and his wife Sabine Ellen Robarts, daughter of James Thomas Robarts (1784–1825), an influential opium dealer. With her he had a daughter, Norah Sabine Mayne (1874-1953), who married Major-General Sir Edward Maxwell Perceval (1861-1955).

Richard Charles Mayne died on May 29, 1892. He was buried in Kensal Green Cemetery , London.

Works

  • Four Years in British Columbia and Vancouver Island. An Account of Their Forests, Rivers, Coasts, Gold Fields and Resources for Colonization. John Murray, London 1862 ( online ).
  • Sailing Directions for Magellan Strait, and Channels Leading to the Gulf of Peñas. Hydrographic Office of the Admiralty, London 1871 ( online ).

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ John Bernard Burke: A genealogical and heraldic dictionary of the landed gentry of Great Britain & Ireland. Harrison, London 1875, p. 1886.
  2. ^ Journal of the Royal Geographical Society. Volume 31, p. 297 and Volume 32, p. 123.
  3. ^ Proceedings of the Royal Geographical Society. Obituary. Pp. 473-475
  4. ↑ DNB
  5. ^ Letter from BJ Sulivan dated June 27, 1866 and nos. 6 and 7 in Darwin's letters. See: [1]  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , [2]  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / www.darwinproject.ac.uk  @1@ 2Template: Dead Link / www.darwinproject.ac.uk  
  6. ^ Genealogical page by David Robarts , accessed June 27, 2011
  7. ^ A b Historical list of MPs: P ( Memento from December 31, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) on Leigh Rayment's Peerage Pages
  8. ↑ Directory of famous personalities of the Kensal Green Cemetery ( Memento of August 29, 2011 in the Internet Archive )
personal data
SURNAME Mayne, Richard Charles
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British admiral and explorer
DATE OF BIRTH 1835
PLACE OF BIRTH London , United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland
DATE OF DEATH May 29, 1892
Place of death London , United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland