"My Little Friend"

Gilbert Lennox King was Assistant Surgeon in Vesuvius throughout the time Richard Ramsay Armstrong served in her. It is clear from Armstrong's account that he and King were inseperable and got up to much mischief, as well as experiencing the horrors of war together. (Armstrong's description of the work of the surgeons after the battle of the Alma is not for the squeamish or faint-hearted.)

The dead and wounded after the battle of the Alma
King was born in Ireland in 1833 or 34, at the naval base at Haulbowline Island in Cork harbour. His father Gilbert, born in Glasgow in 1791, was also a naval medical man: he had been promoted Surgeon in 1813. In his long career he served in over 25 different ships and shore establishments. He was employed as surgeon in numerous convict and emigrant ships to Australia during the 1820s and 30s. He was promoted Deputy Inspector of Hospitals & Fleets on the 12th of August, 1841. From that date he was at the Bermuda hospital until June, 1844. Then at the Royal Hospital, Haslar, until the end of that year, and in the East Indies until April of 1845. He was promoted to Inspector of Hospitals & Fleets on the 9th of November, 1846, and put on the retired list. In 1854, when his son was about to go to war in Vesuvius, King Snr. was one of only ten Inspectors of Hospitals & Fleets in the Navy Medical Department, directly below Sir William Burnett, the Director General.

Haulbowline Island in Cork harbour
King's father had married Jane Sophia Townshend, on the 14th of December, 1830, at Stoke Damerel, Plymouth (ie Devonport), according to a parish record of marriage in the IGI online. Jane is almost a complete mystery. If the less common spelling of her name is correct, all that can be said is that there were others of that variant at Stoke Damerel. And the King's eldest child, Jane Sophia, was born there in about 1832. Furthermore, there were Royal Naval officers called Townshend; naturally many RN officers lived in Stoke Damerel/Devonport; RN surgeons, like all officers, regularly married the daughters of other officers. But that is all that can be said because King's mother Jane resists every attempt to identify her. However, she did die before 1851 because Gilbert Snr. is described as a widower in that census. But she does not appear in the General Register of Deaths for England & Wales, so either died before that became law in 1837, or died abroad.

By the 12th of July, 1832, King's family had moved to Cork. Gilbert King Snr's service record [in ADM 196/8 at The National Archives] states that he served at the Haulbowline hospital from that date until the 22nd of March, 1834. And Haulbowline is where Gilbert Lennox King was born. I had thought it possible that King's mother Jane had died in childbirth at Haulbowline, but she had a third child, Elizabeth Barbary King, born on the 13th of May, 1835, at Portsmouth, when King Snr. was a surgeon in Victory. This younger sister was baptised on the 18th of June that year at St. John, Portsea. Then she too disappears from the records, and it must be assumed that she died in infancy. And it is quite likely that mother Jane may have died in childbirth or in the two years before compulsory registration.

King's older sister Jane Sophia married Benjamin Clarke in London in 1860. Benjamin was a clerk at the Inland Revenue and like Jane had been born at Devonport, three years after his future wife. By 1871 they had three sons and a daughter and Benjamin is described in the census as a Clerk 3rd Class at the Inland Revenue at Somerset House. By the 1891 census the family had moved to Hornsey and Benjamin was recorded as a "Secretary, Editor and Occassional Preacher." He had become the secretary of the Homes for Little Boys at Farningham and editor of the Sunday School Chronicle. There were now five sons and one daughter listed. The eldest son was a chartered accountant, the others clerks, or still at school. The daughter was a high school teacher. The household had one live-in servant, a cook/domestic. Benjamin died at home on the 30th of January 1893 and in 1901 five of the children are all living at home with their widowed mother Jane - all still single.

Gilbert King Snr.'s published work
Nothing is known about King's childhood and teenage years and he makes his first appearance in the records in the 1851 census for England and Wales. He was living with his widowed father and his surviving sister Jane in Belgravia at 24, Belgrave Place. There was no live-in servant and it appears the Kings shared the house with a music teacher called Wagstaff, his wife, niece and one domestic. King was 17 years old and had no occupation recorded, but presumably he was a medical student because he passed his examination for Naval Assistant Surgeon at the Royal College of Surgeons in 1853 and was immediately appointed to the Vesuvius on the 30th of June that year. On the 18th of September Richard Ramsay Armstrong joined ship as a midshipman. King and Armstrong were almost exactly the same age and of course messed together.

It is easy to conjure up the characters of the two young men: Armstrong the young 'old hand' with much experience on the West Coast of Africa chasing slavers. In some respects mature beyond his years, popular, gregarious, and perhaps a little bumptious with his less experienced peers. King the 'new boy', trying to be serious and conscientious, with a responsible job to do, but perhaps a little wide-eyed and unsure, eagerly following in his father's footsteps. Whatever their characters, they became firm friends.

After all their adventures in the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov, on the 26th of November, 1855, King was appointed to Royal Albert as the ship's company of Vesuvius began to break up. (Armstrong joined Stromboli the next day.) On the 13th of May, 1857, King was appointed to the screw steam vessel Arrow, Commander Samuel H. Henderson, still on the Mediterranean station. On the 28th of August that year he was appointed to Impregnable, the Flag Ship at Devonport, for service at the Plymouth hospital. On the 29th of March, 1858, King left the hospital for a spell in the brig Nautilus, the tender to Impregnable, and on the 24th of April his promotion to surgeon was confirmed.

King's Service Records
After that it appears that King had some months without a ship, but on the 23rd of September, 1858, he was appointed surgeon to Sphinx, Commander George Fiott Day VC, for the East Indies and China Station - to bolster the naval presence in the 2nd Opium War. Sphinx left Spithead in company with Odin and four gunboats for the China seas on Thursday the 10th of November - she and two of the gunboats in the morning and Odin and the other two gunboats in the afternoon. [Naval and Military Intelligence, The Times, Friday, 11 November, 1859. page 10]. It was a long commission (as they usually were to the furthest oceans, never mind the war) and she didn't return to England until July 1863 when King was paid off along with the rest of the ship's company.

King didn't go to sea again and within two years he was dead. It is not clear exactly what happened to him, but what evidence there is points to a difficult and unhappy time. Six months after he returned from the war in China he signed for his medal on the 15th of January, 1864, according to the medal roll [Asplin, K.J., China Medal Roll, Royal Navy, Savannah, 2004. ISBN 1 902366 2 32 8] and his service record. His service record also states that less than three weeks after that he was admitted into the Yarmouth Lunatic Asylum, on the 2nd of February, 1864. It had only been taken over by the Royal Navy for that purpose in September the previous year. King was discharged on the 3rd of August, 1864, after seven months in the care of Deputy Inspector of Hospitals & Fleets James Rae MD, who had been lent from Haslar to set up this new independent asylum.

Gilbert King Snr.'s obit in the Gentleman's magazine

Six weeks after King's admission to Yarmouth his father died at his sister and brother-in-law's house at 38, Gibson Square, Islington. He was 73.

Probate Index, Gilbert King Snr.
What was King's problem? Simply a breakdown from exhaustion? A life-threatening disease? We don't know. Sometime in the ten months after his discharge from Yarmouth it seems he returned to Plymouth, because he died there on the 9th of June, 1865, aged 32. At least one of his death notices suggest that he died after a short illness at Wyndham Street, Plymouth, the address given in the probate index.

Gilbert Lennox King's death notice in The Lancet
Armstrong makes no further mention of King after the Crimean campaign, so it is possible he never knew the fate of his "Little Friend".

Further research:
Clearly a sight of 'cause of death' on King's death certificate would be informative. But as for the reasons for his admission to Yarmouth, it looks as if it will be impossible to find out: there appear to be no extant patient records from that time.

Reconstruction of Gilbert Lennox King's medals:
L to R, Crimea & Azoff Clasp, 5th Class Medjidie, Turkish and China War.

John Billingham Swann

John Billingham Swann (1828-1904) was a Passed Clerk in Vesuvius from the 29th of June, 1853, until appointed Assistant Paymaster in Diamond on the 9th of February, 1855, so would have messed with Richard Ramsay Armstrong and they would have known one another well.

Swann had two careers: after retiring from the Navy as a Paymaster on the 17th of June, 1870, he embarked on probably his true vocation as a clergyman. This was unusual, but by no means unheard of for ex-army and naval officers during the nineteenth century. I can name a couple with whom I am very familiar and there were undoubtedly others: the first an old cousin of mine, the Reverend Arthur Ralph Green Thomas, vicar of St. Paul Camden Square for many years, who started out as Lieutenant in the 32nd (Cornwall) Regiment of Foot, with seniority 13 March 1827, and top-class exam results from Sandhurst. The other was a certain rather unsavoury gentleman by the name of Granville Hamilton Wood, a Commander RN, about whom Richard Ramsay Armstrong heard dire reports when he served on the Slave Coast around 1850. Wood left the Navy under something of a cloud and reappeared having taken Holy Orders and become a Jesuit priest, dying in Malta under slightly suspicious circumstances. (For the full story, see my piece "The Secret History of HM Brig Hound" in the appendices of RRA's Book of his Adventures.)



Swann was born on the 9th of May, 1828, one of at least two sons and at least two daughters, to an interesting character called Edward Swann and his wife Elizabeth, formerly Chambers. The parents had married by licence in Warwickshire on the 4th of November, 1823. The bridegroom was 46. He had been born in Leicester in 1777 and was the eldest surviving son of ten children of a wealthy currier of Belgrave Gate in Leicester, also called Edward. (Above: Belgrave Gate, Leicester, in the 1920s) Edward junior appears to have become an Assistant Surgeon in the Royal Navy sometime around the turn of the century, extrapolating from his brief obituary in the Medical Times & Gazette Vol 2, July 13, 1861:

"July 3rd 1861 death - Swann July 3, at Weedon, Northamptonshire, Edward Swann, late Staff Surgeon to the Military District prison, at Weedon, formerly Asstant Surgeon in the Royal Navy, and afterwards Ordnance Surgeon, aged 83. The deceased gentleman served in the Walcheren Expedition, and the siege of Flushing."

There doesn't seem to be much concrete evidence for his naval career. There is, however, a relevant record at the National Archives (ADM 45/29 Series 8, No. 95) which is an 1852 application to the Admiralty as follows:

"Elizabeth Swann formerly Elizabeth Chambers, Widow of Surgeon, who died: 18 March 1852. Notes on executor's application for money owed by the Royal Navy."

This means Elizabeth had a previous husband who had been a surgeon in the Navy. A quick search identifies one Robert Chambers, Surgeon RN, seniority 17 Nov 1807, who married Elizabeth Billington (Note) on the 10th of May, 1810, at Brownsover, Warwickshire, just outside Rugby. Another search of the National Archives online catalogue confirms all this with the following record in ADM 6/355:

"Elizabeth Chambers, widow of Robert Chambers, surgeon Royal Navy who died 03 Apr 1817. Includes: Extract from Parish Register, married 10 May 1810. Papers submitted to the Charity for the relief of Officers' Widows. Covering dates 1817."

So John Billingham Swann's father Edward married the widow Chambers in 1823, six years after the death of her first husband, a Royal Naval surgeon. Edward claimed he had been an assistant surgeon in the Navy too, but I can't find a service record for him, or any other naval record of any kind for an Edward Swann, although it is possible - probable even - he served under an alias. There were two 'Swann' surgeons in the Navy at approximately the right time, both of whose service records are extant: there was a George Swann, but he appears to be too young and not connected. However a John Henry Swann, seniority 26 Jan 1809, whose service appears to finish in 1814 but continues to appear in the Navy Lists well into the 1840s, is a much more plausible candidate. But on closer examination of his service record it turns out he was in the West Indies for the whole of 1809 and 1810 while the Walcheren Expedition and the siege of Flushing were in progress. (Edward Swann's brief obituary in the Medical Times & Gazette of 1861 - see above - claims he served at Walcheren and Flushing.) Incidently, it is not at all clear from the reference to Walcheren and Flushing whether Swann was still in the Navy at the time, or had already joined the Ordnance Medical Department.

Edward Swann's marriage to the Widow Chambers was actually his second too. He had married an Elizabeth Bishop at St. Margaret, Leicester, on the 9th of June, 1802. They had had at least eight children by 1818, and she probably died in 1819/20. The clue that revealed this first marriage comes from the Monthly Magazine & British Register of the 1st of May, 1821:

"In August last, at sea, off the coast of China, Mr, J. Swann, second son of Mr. S. Royal Ordnance Surgeon, at Weedon Depot."

This was John Edward Swann, born Leicester, 1805, and it will be noted that this death notice was published two years before Edward Swann married the Widow Chambers.

At some point - probably around 1812/13 because his youngest two recorded children by his first marriage were born at Weedon - Surgeon (if that is what he was) Edward Swann apparently left the Navy and started working for the Ordnance Medical Department at Weedon Depot. However, the first mention I can actually find for him in the Army Lists is in 1846. He is listed as "Surgeon: Dr. E. Swann, late of R.N." for the Military Prison at Weedon, Northamptonshire. His earlier career as surgeon for the depot, before the prison was created on the same site, is not recorded in any Army List as far as I am aware. It turns out that a part of Weedon was only converted into the prison in 1844/45 [see this PDF from English Heritage] and "was opened for the reception of prisoners on the 7th August, 1845 [Parliamentary return dated 26th May 1846], so Edward Swann was clearly the first prison medical officer and moved seemlessly from one job to the other.



Very little can be discovered about the children of his first marriage, and infuriatingly, Edward and Elizabeth Swann (Mk.2) and their children can't be found in the 1841 census for England & Wales. I have been informed by Alan J. Clarke who runs a very useful look-up service for the 1841 Northamptonshire census that the Weedon Bec - including the barracks - census returns for that year have not survived.

Nevertheless, John Billington Swann's naval career is well documented in his service record held by the National Archives. Click on the image for a larger version:



It will be seen that he retired from the Navy on the 17th of June, 1870. He had been married for ten years. Not to be outdone by his father, he had also married an Elizabeth - Elizabeth Smith Farmer. This from the Gentleman's Magazine of 1860:

"At the parish church, Cheadle, Cheshire, JB Swann esq RN son of Edward Swann esq of Weedon, Northamptonshire, to Elizabeth, dau. of John Farmer of Cheadle."

The National Archives has a record of the marriage too - it was recorded "for potential Royal Navy widow's pension." [ ADM 13/70 Marriage Certificates. Folio: 680 ] This could well have been done on the advice of his father whose second wife Elizabeth Chambers had apparently had trouble getting her widow's pension from The Admiralty (see above)!

In the 1861 census Paymaster Swann and his new bride were living in Melcombe Regis, Dorset. His father Edward, then 83 years old, a widower for the second time since 1852, was in lodgings in Weedon Bec. Just weeks after the census, he too was dead.

Meanwhile, Swann's elder brother Frederick Billington Swann had studied medicine at St George's Hospital, London, and went on to become a GP in the home village of Weedon, eventually taking on his father's old job as Medical Officer at the prison.

Paymaster Swann and Elizabeth probably had four children during the course of the 1860s: Harrington, Sidney Bellingham, Lilian and Grace. By the 1871 census the family was based in Richmond, Surrey, presumably so Swann could study at King's College, London. [ Crockford's Clerical Directory, 1874 ] The same sources reveals that he was ordained deacon in 1873 by the Bishop of Lichfield and became Curate of St. John, Derby, in the diocese of Lichfield the same year. The family was now living at 9, Vernon Street, Derby. Both boys attended the old Derby School (crest, right) and Harrington went on to Rugby and Sidney to Marlborough.



In the middle of the 1870s Swann became the Rector of Harlaston in Staffordshire (St. Matthew's Church, above), where he remained for twenty years until about 1895. The rectory is pictured at right, looking very much as it would have done in Swann's day. He then returned to his roots - becoming Rector of the tiny village of Catthorpe near Rugby in the very heart of the Midlands and right in the modern 'armpit' of the M1 and M6 motorways. And, as the crow flies, about 12½ miles north of his birthplace of Weedon.

Both Swann's daughters got married in the 1890s. Neither were in the first flush of youth: Lilian, the elder, was the first to go. She married a David Pegrum in Deptford in 1896. She was 32. Grace, who was three years Lilian's junior, married at Catthorpe on the 13th of December, 1898. The bridegroom was Theodore Edward Naish, a thirty year old Captain in the Royal Engineers and son of a Bristol cotton manufacturer. The union was a disaster. Grace bore one child, Sidney, in Halifax, Nova Scotia in 1900. In July 1909 Grace filed a petition for seperation on the grounds of cruelty, which she won. In 1912 they were divorced after Grace employed private detectives to provide evidence of Naish's adultery. Page 4 of The Times of Wednesday the 30th of October 1912 carries a report of the court case. Reading through it, one could easily form the impression that Naish was a proper cad and a bounder. However, that was the necessity to win in court, and it may well have been much more a case of 'six and two threes'. Naish remarried in 1917 to a Ruth Harrison - not the woman named in the adultery case. Unfortunately I can find no more recent reference to Grace or her son Sidney.


Of Swann's sons, Harrington opted for a career in the regular army after a spell in the Derby Militia. He married Miss Fanny Stevens of Long Island in 1893. There is just a hint of sniffiness in the New York Times' report - Fanny was well connected in New York society and the wedding breakfast was at the Waldorf - the groom was only described as coming "from a good English family and stands in high favor in the English Army." [Marriages NYT 22 March 1893] After his sister Grace's seperation he became one of the guardians of his nephew Sidney. However, like his sisters, Harrington then disappears into obscurity.

Sidney Bellingham Swann (the spelling of his grandmother's maiden name changed over the years), on the other hand (left), had such a well-documented and extraordinary life than I can do little more than list some achievements and show a facsimile of his obituary from The Times of Tuesday the 4th of August 1942. He was athlete, cyclist, rower (Cambridge Blue), pioneer motorist, canoeist, amateur flying enthusiast, wartime ambulance driver, clergyman and missionary to Japan. Cleary one of the great English eccentrics - some would say madmen - he died of a heart attack in 1942 following a fracture of the thigh caused by falling off his bicycle. For good measure I have added a facsimile of The Times obituary for his second wife, the amazing Lady Bagot, which was published on the 26th of February 1940. His Son, Sidney Ernest Swann followed in his wake and was also a Cambridge rowing Blue, then won gold and silver rowing medals in the 1912 and 1920 Summer Olympics respectively.



The Reverend John Billingham Swann, once a young naval clerk who had likely occupied the next hammock to Richard Ramsay Armstrong in the bowels of Vesuvius fifty years before, died at the rectory, Catthorpe, on Tuesday the 16th of August, 1904. His brief obituary appeared in The Times two days later.

Hubert Campion

Hubert Campion (1825-1900) was First, or Senior Lieutenant in Vesuvius in the Black Sea under Richard Ashmore Powell. Richard Ramsay Armstrong would have known him well, despite not mentioning him by name in the Book of His Adventures. Sadly, I can find no photograph of the man.

Hubert Campion's obituary on page seven of The Times of Tuesday, 17 April, 1900, reads as follows:

"The death is announced as having occurred at Lee, Kent, on Good Friday, of REAR-ADMIRAL HUBERT CAMPION, C.B., aged 74 years. He entered the Navy in 1848, and rose through the usual grades, becoming commander in 1855, and captain in 1863. Seven years later he retired, and was made rear-admiral on the Retired List in 1878. During the Crimean War Rear-Admiral Campion was senior lieutenant of the Vesuvius, the only ship which took part in the battle of the Alma, covering the attack of the French by shelling the Russians. He was in command of the same vessel during the hurricane at Balaclava, when the Vesuvius narrowly escaped destruction by a transport crossing her bows carrying away the bow-sprit and otherwise damaging the vessel. The abilities he had displayed thus early in his career led to his being selected as harbour-master of Balaclava until he was relieved by Admiral Boxer. He took part in both Kertch expeditions and in all the operations in the Sea of Azoff, during the latter part of which he commanded the Ardent. At the fall of Sevastopol he was gazetted promotion for his gallant services, and received the Crimean and Turkish medals. He was also a Knight of the legion of Honour. The deceased officer took a deep interest in the Royal Navy Scripture Readers Society, of which he acted as secretary."

Typical of the briefer type of naval obituary in The Times, this is clearly short of personal and family information, and really only pads out what can be found in the Navy Lists. However, the writer must have had one informant who claimed to know the deceased: the factually incorrect anecdote about Campion "being selected as harbour-master of Balaclava until he was relieved by Admiral Boxer" does not appear in any of the Navy Lists, or anywhere else other than this obituary as far as I am aware. The truth is that Admiral Boxer (see the Appendices of RRA's book for more details) was not appointed harbour-master at Balaklava. He was appointed Port Admiral. Furthermore, Leopold George Heath was the harbour-master and Powell - Campion's boss - was in charge of pilotage, assisted by his officers and men of Vesuvius, including Campion and Armstrong of course. [Heath, Admiral Sir Leopold George, K.C.B., LETTERS FROM THE BLACK SEA DURING THE CRIMEAN WAR, 1854-1855, Richard Bentley and Son, London, 1897.]



Campion was born in Exeter, Devon, on the 18th of June, 1825, and was baptised on the 2nd of August at St. Paul, Exeter. He was the third child of seven - two girls and five boys. They were the children of Thomas Campion, a local wharfinger, prominent businessman and merchant who had been born circa 1780 and died in 1859. An uncle, Richard Crudge Campion, was an Exeter solicitor who died in 1863. In fact Hubert was something of an oddity in the family for joining the Navy - most of his male relatives joined the legal or medical professions. His elder brother John Thomas Campion became a GP and his younger brother Henry a dentist. (The youngest brother, George Frederick, apparently died in childhood.)

There is a rather peculiar 'blank' at the beginning of Campion's naval career. It will be seen that his obituary in The Times states that he joined the Navy in 1848. If true, he would have been about 23 years old. However, an examination of his service record in the National Archives (see below) explains the author's mistake: unusually Campion's career record starts on the 22nd of June, 1848, when he was promoted to Mate, ignoring his time as a Naval Cadet and Midshipman, for time there must have been. In fact, 23 was quite old to still be without a Lieutenant's commission, and horribly old to still be a Midshipman, the rank he must have held before the 22nd of June, 1848.

The Navy Lists have the same blind spot too: Flag rank officers are given a landscape-view chart with their entry-through-promotions-to-retirement dates shown in columns. Campion's first two columns (entry and Mid.) are blank. Not actually uncommon in itself - many old Admirals don't have these early career dates recorded - but it does become a bit of a mystery when they are not recorded anywhere.

Most 'elderly' Midshipmen were considered duffers by their contemporaries and pitied or despised depending on their charm, or lack of it. Perhaps young Hubert had shown himself to be 'academically challenged' and there was no way he was up to following a legal or medical career like his family would have wished, so he was bundled off to the Navy. He wouldn't have been the first, or last, to find himself defending the Empire at sea by that route. (In fact Armstrong rather suggests in the opening passages of the book that he was propelled into the Navy for much the same reasons.)



However, an examination of Campion's career doesn't really show him to be a duffer. In fact he was very nearly in the 'stellar' category, and it seems fairly clear that he, a man of independent means due to his family's wealth, chose to let his career peter out allowing him to become a real family man ashore. Once he had passed the exam for Lieutenant and got that late (for whatever reason) promotion to Mate, he moved forward fairly quickly for the time. You very definitely did not get chosen to serve in the Royal Yacht Victoria & Albert if you were a duffer. Furthermore, he was chosen as one of the four officers of the Royal Yacht to get the traditional annual promotion for 1849, the others being Edward Vansittart to Commander and Mates Charles Trelawny Jago and Beville Granville Wyndham Nicolas also getting their commissions for Lieutenant. (Nicolas was one of the rare unfortunates the spelling and construction of whose name was an intangible mystery to the compilers of the Navy Lists and journalists alike. Not surprising really...and I am not 100% certain I have it right here!)

Few naval officers in the Black Sea got a chance to distinguish themselves, and it was especially frustrating for those who didn't serve in the Naval Brigade. However, service at Kertch and particularly in the Sea of Azoff did provide opportunities for those involved to get noticed, as Armstrong himself records. Campion clearly did everything that that was asked of him; got his name in the papers several times, and was gazetted Commander in recognition of his efforts. Incidently, as well as becoming a Knight of the Legion of Honour for his Crimean service, he also got the 5th Class of the Turkish Order of the Medjidie (right).



His naval career:

Dates	Ship	Rank
22 June 48	Promoted to Mate
22 June 48 - 29 Nov 48	Nimrod	Mate
30 Nov 48 - 6 Feb 49	President	ditto
2 May 49 - 11 June 49	Castor	ditto
5 June 49 - 31 Oct 49	Victoria & Albert	ditto
23 Oct 1849	Discharge promotion to Lieut.
11 Oct 50 - 5 Dec 51	Geyser	Lieutenant
3 Apr 52 - 10 May 52	Hecate	ditto
11 May 52 - 17 June	Geyser	ditto
22 June 53 - 14 Sept 55	Vesuvius	ditto
15 Sept 55 - 15 Feb 56	Ardent	ditto
7 Dec 1855	Promoted to Commander
15 May 56 - 25 Aug 57	Falcon	Commander
3 March 58 - 21 Aug 60	Elk	ditto
22 Aug 60 - 23 Aug 60	Wellesley	ditto
21 Apr 62 - 23 Sept 63	Boscowen	ditto
19 Sept 1863	Posted Captain

On the 2nd of October, 1860, at Walthamstow, Essex, Campion married Elizabeth Gilmore (born circa 1830, Ilford, Essex), the eldest daughter of John Gilmore, a Royal Naval lieutenant on half-pay who was also a ship owner. (Gilmore had been born circa 1794 and joined the Navy as an AB in 1806, a typical way for 'young gentlemen' to be introduced onto the books of warships. He had been involved in the latter stages of the Napoleonic Wars and had seen much active service on the North American station in the war of 1812. He had received his Lieutenant's commission in 1815 after a period as Acting Lieutenant in the Gulf of Mexico. Since that date he had been on half-pay and appears to have been a ship owner and registrant of several patents to do with ship ventilation and the like.) [Main source: O’Byrne, William R., A NAVAL BIOGRAPHICAL DICTIONARY, John Murray, London, 1849. Reprinted by Vintage Naval Library, Dallington, 1997.]

Hubert and Elizabeth had at least five children between 1862 and 1871, four sons and a daughter. The latter, Rose, who was the second child, was born in Hampshire in 1863 and appears to have never married, running the household for her widowed father until his death, and then living with her brother Ivon, who by 1901 was a solicitor in London.

The eldest child was Hubert Craigie Campion, born in 1862 at Ramsgate, Kent. He was educated at Tonbridge School between 1874 and 1881. He was a Smythe Exhibition Scholar of Keble College, Oxford, where he achieved a 1st class Mods. degree. He died at Oxford on the 2nd of February, 1883, two days after contracting scarlet fever. He was 21.

Arthur Goring Campion was born at Ramsgate in 1864. The Tonbridge School records him as "being with an estate agent", but in the 1891 census he is listed as a professional actor, and in the 1901 census for Scotland he was apparently in lodgings in Morningside, Edinburgh, and still listed as an actor. However, I can't find any more details of his career.

Harold Gilmore Campion was born at Ramsgate the following year. Also educated at Tonbridge School, he followed one of the family traditions and became a solicitor. He married Ellen Wilton Everet at Wandsworth, London, in 1893. They had a son, Hubert Wilton Campion, born in 1896, who was a Midshipman in the RNVR in the First World War. He served in the RN Division and then in the RN Air Service; became a Sub-Lieutenant and did a stint in the newly formed RAF before reverting to the RNVR when demobbed from the RAF in September 1919 and promoted to Lieutenant. He resigned from the RNVR in February 1922. He is recorded as an articled clerk to a solicitor in civilian life. [National Archives, Catalogue Reference:adm/337/117]

Ivon Hamilton Campion was born at Ramsgate on the 27th of June, 1870. Like his brothers before him, he was educated at Tombridge School and went to Selwyn College, Cambridge, entering October 1889. B.A. 1892. [Venn, J. A., comp., Alumni Cantabrigienses. London, CUP 1922-1954.] He became a solicitor and apparently an author of at least one published novel - A Dawnless Fate - though I can find nothing more about it than this Google Books listing.

Campion retired as a Captain on the 1st of April, 1870, and was eventually made a Companion of the Bath, dated the 2nd of June, 1877. (Left)

Hubert Campion's wife Elizabeth died on the 20th of January, 1888, at the family residence, 8, Marlborough Road, Lee, in SE London. [Deaths, The Times, Saturday January 21 1888, page 1.] Hubert lived on for another twelve years of so, looked after by his daughter Rose.

The Lower House of the Convocation of Canterbury produced a report in 1875 on "Church Work amongst Sailors in 64 Home Ports". It was published in London by W. Wells Gardner, 2 Paternoster Buildings, and was transcribed by Wayne Kempton, Archivist and Historiographer of the Episcopal Diocese of New York in 2008 and available online at anglicanhistory.org :

"On the west side of Portsmouth Harbour lies Gosport, chiefly frequented by colliers and other coasters, and also during the summer months by yachts; hence it has no non-resident seamen to provide for. The Missions to Seamen Society has a lay reader stationed at Ryde, who occasionally visits this place, and another stationed here, but who principally works in Haslar Hospital and the ships of the Royal Navy. Two other Societies seek to work for the spiritual benefit of the seamen of the Royal Navy. The first is the Royal Naval Scripture Readers Society. This was founded in 1860, for the purpose of giving spiritual aid to the seamen and marines of the Royal Navy, through the instrumentality of scripture readers. These endeavour to touch the hearts of the men by supplementing the labours of the chaplains, and acting under their superintendence in those ships of war which have no chaplains, and in the several naval hospitals and barracks, and, except the Missions to Seamen Society's agents, are the sole pastoral agency in that large section of H.M.'s fleet which is without chaplains. The readers, 14 in number, are stationed at six of the principal naval seaports, and have done much good service. Captain Hubert Campion, R.N., is the secretary of this excellent Society, which ought to be much better supported than it is."

(See pages 19-20 of http://www.royalnavy.mod.uk/upload/pdf/Chaplain_RN_09.pdf for more about The Royal Naval Scripture Readers Society.)

HMS Vesuvius

Image PW5680, © National Maritime Museum, Greenwich.

Oswald Walter Brierly's painting of Vesuvius and Gun Boats Wrangler and Grinder at the destroying of stores, Sea of Azoff, 1 Sept 1855. Published here with the kind permission of the National Maritime Museum.

HMS Vesuvius was a Symonds wooden steam paddle sloop launched 11 July 1839 and sold for scrap in 1865. She was the ship Richard Ramsay Armstrong joined 18 September 1853 and served in, in the Mediterranean, Black Sea and Sea of Azoff, until joining Stromboli at the end of November, 1855. Her 'builder's measure' was 970 tons, with a displacement of 1283 tons. She carried eight guns at the time of RRA's service (4 32pounders and 4 long 68s) and was rated at 280 horse-power.

Vesuvius' career was as follows (extracted from the Navy Lists):

Her first commander was William Simpson Blount in 1840.

31 August 1840 until August 1841, on the Mediterranean station, commanded first by Thomas Henderson and then by Granville Gower Loch.

23 August 1841 until 1844 commanded by Erasmus Ommanney, Mediterranean station.

22 March 1845 commanded by George William Douglas O'Callaghan, on the North America and West Indies station.

19 February 1847, Herbert G. Austen, North America and West Indies.

1848 until 1852 at Woolwich, Devonport and Plymouth.

1852 until 22 March 1852 Commanded by Commander Frederick Lamport Barnard

17 August 1853 until February 1855 commanded by Richard Ashmore Powell in the Mediterranean and Black Sea.

17 February 1855 until October 1855 commanded by Sherard Osborn in the Black Sea and Sea of Azov.

29 October 1855 until autumn 1856 commanded by Edward George Hore in the Mediterranean.

20 April 1857 until spring 1860 commanded by Charles Wise on the West coast of Africa.

16 July 1862 until 1864 commanded by Captain Richard Vesey Hamilton in the West Indies.

Here is a scan of Allen's Navy List, corrected to January 1855, showing Vesuvius' officers at that time. RRA was still too junior to feature:



However, here is a link to a transcription of the Crimean War Medal Roll for Vesuvius. Taken from ADM 171/28. Note that RRA is very conveniently the first entry!

Next, I will look at some of RRA's fellow officers in Vesuvius, starting with Richard Ashmore Powell.

Robert Philip Armstrong (1825-1863)

We now come to Richard Ramsay Armstrong's service in the Crimea. RRA had two brothers in the Army who served alongside him at the siege of Sevastopol, and it is the elder of the two who is covered first.

Robert Philip Armstrong was the eldest surviving boy in the Armstrong family. He was born in Jersey on 10 February and baptized on 13 March, 1825. He was presented by Philippe de Quetteville Esq. and Dlle. Esther Nicolle.

He joined the Army on 25 February, 1848, by purchase as an Ensign in the 67th Foot - the South Hampshire Regiment. By the time of the invasion of the Crimean he was a Lieutenant (seniority 06.06.1854). Below is a scan of the December 1854 Hart's Army List for 67th showing RPA located at the regimental depot. At some point in early 1855 he transferred to the 77th Foot - the East Middlesex Regiment - and went to the Crimea.


He served throughout the campaign with the 77th, being 'wounded, slightly' on 17 August, 1855. [Frank & Andrea Cook, Casualty Roll for the Crimea, Hayward & Son, London, 1976.] He received the Crimea Medal with 'Sebastopol' Clasp and the Turkish Medal.

After the war RPA returned to Jersey. However, the rest of his life is poorly recorded. At some point, not at this moment clear, he transferred to the 23rd Regiment - The Royal Welsh Fusiliers. He was promoted Captain on 26 March, 1858. From the pages of The Times it appears he either did, or was about to go to India with his regiment, and may have got as far as Malta, where the 23rd were part of the garrison in March 1859. He was still there in July 1860.

However, at some point in 1861 he got married to Clara Ann Malet, a younger sister of Eliza Susanna Malet, RRA’s wife.

Robert Philip Armstrong died in 1863, in the first year of their marriage.

The Wrong Kennedy...!

I have made a silly mistake with the identification of one of RRA's colleagues in the Naval Brigade ashore in the Crimean War.

On page 408, in the Appendix 2 piece about the death of Lieutenant Kidd at the Redan on 18 June 1855, I confused two men called Kennedy who were young officers in the Naval Brigade and were both part of the ladder parties that tried to storm the Redan. This doesn't affect the overall piece, but it is a sloppy mistake - especially as (modesty aside) I probably know more about the 150 officers who served ashore with the Naval Brigade than anyone else! So, for the sake of honour, I must set the record straight:

In fact there were three unrelated officers called Kennedy who served ashore with the Naval Brigade during the Crimean War. The most senior was John James Kennedy (1821-1885). He was a Commander by the time of the Redan assault and was effectively 'brigade major', not being part of the ladder parties. His life was a very intriguing one and I cover it in some detail in the investigation of 'Mrs. and Miss Dunn' starting on page 429.

The second was William Robert Kennedy (1838-1916), later a full Admiral; well known and much respected (photo, above). It was he that I carelessly assumed was the 'Kennedy, Mate' that appears in the list of officers attached to the ladder parties. I even went so far as to point out that the official list was wrong in calling him a Mate because I knew he was still a Midshipman at the time. If nothing else, this should have alerted me to my mistake. W.R. Kennedy was part of the ladder parties, but in one of those which never made the assault, watching the action from the forward trench. This explains the lack of detail concerning his own activity in his autobiography.

The real 'Kennedy, Mate' of the No.3 Ladder Party led by Lieutenants Cave and Kidd was of course Andrew James Kennedy (1834-1895). His life was very low profile compared to either of the other two. He is quite difficult to research: his Times obituary is very brief and lacking in detail and he does not appear to be included in anyone's detailed family research. However, the following is known about him and comes from my file for him:

Andrew James Kennedy, Admiral RN, b. 21 Jan, bapt. 16 Feb 1834 Princes Street Independent, Devonport, married 1QTR 1871 Stoke Damerel, Cordelia Mary Gill (daughter of Thomas H. Gill, solicitor, and his wife Elizabeth, of Devonport), and died 17 Feb 1895 at the Hotel International, Nice, France. Only known child: Ethel Annie Kennedy, b. c.1875 Devonport. 6 August 1855 Lieutenant; 11 April 1866 Commander; 13 October 1876 Captain.

His brief obituary in the Times of Thursday 21 Feb 1895, reads as follows:

Admiral Andrew James Kennedy, who died at Nice on the 17th inst., entered the Navy in 1847, and served in the Black Sea and Crimea 1854-5, receiving the 5th Class of the Medjidieh and a knighthood of the Legion of Honour. He was captain of the Briton during the naval and military operations in Eastern Sudan in 1884, and was placed on the retired list in 1889. He was promoted to be rear-admiral (retired) in 1891.

However, this does miss the fact that he was awarded the Sardinian Medaglia Al Valore Militare (photo, left) for his service in the Crimea. The citation reads:

Served with the Naval Brigade nearly nine months, and at every bombardment except the first. Was one of the scaling-ladder party at the attack on the Redan, on the 18th of June, and was mentioned in the despatches of the late Lord Raglan, for his conduct on that occasion with especial praise. Also especially recommended by Sir Stephen Lushington, for good service during the siege of Sebastopol.

[Dougla-Morris, Kenneth J., NAVAL MEDALS 1793-1856, Privately Printed, London, 1987.]