Thomas Graves (Admiral)

Graves as Rear Admiral with the Order of the Bath insignia in 1801, oil painting by James Northcote

Sir Thomas Graves KCB (* approx. 1747 in County Londonderry , † March 29, 1814 in Honiton ) was an Irish- born English naval officer and admiral .

Origin and early years

Thomas Graves was born in County Londonderry around 1747. A source names 1752 as the year of birth, which cannot be correct due to the regulations of the Royal Navy on the occasion of his first promotion to officer. Graves was the nephew of Admiral Samuel Graves and great cousin of Admiral Lord Thomas Graves, 1st Baron Graves . He was the youngest of three children; his two older brothers also became officers and reached admiral ranks. Graves entered the Royal Navy at a very young age and had his first voyages under his uncle's command in the Seven Years War . The ships he sailed on were the sloop HMS Scorpion , the 2nd class ship of the line HMS Vanguard and the frigate HMS Venus . After 1763 he served together with his cousin Thomas on the ships HMS Antelope and HMS Edgar , both 4th class liners. His promotion to lieutenant took place in 1765 off the West African coast, he took up his officer position on the frigate HMS Shannon .

Graves was married twice, once to a Ms. Bacon, sister of Colonel Philipp Bacon, and the couple had a daughter, Mary. In his second marriage he was married to a Ms. Blacknall from Parham in Suffolk , this marriage remained childless.

1770 to 1783

In 1770 Graves was assigned to the frigate HMS Arethusa as a lieutenant . The ship was originally built in France for the French Navy, but was captured by the Royal Navy in 1759 and put into service. Graves served from 1773 on the sloop HMS Racehorse under the command of the explorer Captain Constantine John Phipps . They explored arctic waters, but only got a little over the 80th parallel. On the second ship of the expedition, HMS Carcass , the later famous Horatio Nelson served as a young midshipman , under whose command Graves would later serve.

A year later, in 1774, Thomas Graves followed his uncle Samuel to North America . From him he received his first command of his own, the recently completed American-built schooner HMS Diana . In the course of the Battle of Chelsea in the American Revolutionary War , which took place on land with the support of the Royal Navy for the Royal Marines on May 27 and 28, 1775, the ship got into bad winds and was heavily shelled from the land side. As the tide started, it fell dry. Graves refused an offer of surrender from the American side, meanwhile around 2000 men under American command were ready to attack his ship with a crew of 30. He had to leave the ship shortly after midnight on May 28, 1775 with his crew, whereupon the Americans could take over the ship. It was the first Royal Navy ship to fall into the hands of the American independence fighters. Graves suffered severe burns from the events. He and his crew were picked up and rescued by an escort ship of the 4th class ship of the line HMS Preston . The commandant of the little sloop, HMS Britannia , was his brother John Graves. Thomas Graves then initially served on the Preston , had various commands over smaller ships for various operations near Boston and Rhode Island , but then returned to England on the Preston .

Only a short time later he sailed again to North America , again on the Preston under the command of William Hotham, 1st Baron Hotham . He was given command of the sloop HMS Savage and provided services in the British West Indies and North America. His promotion to captain , today roughly equivalent to the rank of lieutenant commander, took place in May 1781. As deputy commander for Sir Edmund Affleck , he led his ship, the 74 and thus third class ship of the line HMS Bedford, in the sea ​​battle off Chesapeake Bay on September 5, 1781. Afterwards he was given command of the Bedford as flag captain , i.e. as commander of the flagship of the commanding admiral, and with this appointment he had the rank of captain in today's sense. Graves took part in this capacity both in the naval battle of St. Kitts on January 25 and 26, 1782 and in the battle of Les Saintes on April 12, 1782, in which he distinguished himself particularly. In autumn 1782 he was given command of the frigate HMS Magicienne , also a former French ship captured by the British. On January 2, 1783, he got into a fierce battle with the French frigate Sibylle , in which both ships were almost shot to the wreck . He saved the ship to Jamaica , the Sibyl was later captured by the British.

1783 until the end of his life

Graves then returned to England, but also spent a lot of time on the mainland, mostly in France . After the peace agreement, he was initially not given a new command, not even during the first clashes on the occasion of the French Revolution in the coalition wars . In 1800 he was finally given command of a 74, the 3rd class ship of the line HMS Cumberland . He was with the ship in the Channel Fleet under the command of John Jervis, Earl of St. Vincent . On January 1, 1801, he was promoted to Rear Admiral of the White . Then he changed command and followed Sir Hyde Parker as commander, first of the 64 HMS Polyphemus , later the HMS Defiance , a 74, into the Baltic Sea . With this ship and his mission he played an important role in Nelson's victory at the sea ​​battle of Copenhagen on April 2, 1801, he was directly after Nelson the second admiral in command. In gratitude, he received recognition from Parliament and was made a Knight of the Order of Bath by King George III. beaten. Nelson congratulated him with a letter dated June 18, 1801 with the words:

"Be assured My Dear Admiral that no person in the service has a Juster value for your Public Services than myself, nor any man breathing a more perfect esteem & regard for your private character. I have experienced all your particularity towards Me for which I am grateful and I beg you to be assured that I shall ever feel myself your most obliged & affectionate friend. "

- Horatio Nelson

Graves retired from active service after his return to England in July 1801, his health was in poor health. He was promoted to vice admiral on November 9, 1805 and promoted to admiral on August 2, 1812. Graves died at his Woodbine Hill home on March 29, 1814.

Graves' oil painting pictured is in Greenwich , in the Old Royal Naval College .

literature

• John Knox Laughton: Graves, Thomas (1747? –1814) in: Dictionary of National Biography, Volume 22, London 1885–1900, en: Wikisource
• Dirk Böndel: Admiral Nelsons Epoche - The Development of Sailing Shipping from 1770 to 1815 , Museum for Transport and Technology Berlin, Verlag Mittler & Sohn GmbH, Berlin 1987, ISBN 3-8132-0276-3
• Antony Preston: History of the Royal Navy , Hamlyn Publishing Group Ltd, published by Bison Books Corp., Greenwich (USA) 1983, ISBN 0-600-38478-0
• Colin White: Nelson - The new letters , The National Maritime Museum, The Boydall Press, London 2005, ISBN 1-84383-130-9
• John Debrett: Debrett's Peerage of England, Scotland and Ireland. , London 1811