New information about 'Pike' 29 Mar 09

New information has come to light about Bayley Pike and John Brewer Pike. Those who have read RRA will remember that he told the story of a young man called Pike, with whom he had been at school in Jersey, who was 'dismissed the Service' in Sierra Leone and put ashore from the notorious HMS Hound.

RRA remembered that Pike instantly got the job of Mate on an 'Indiaman' which was at Sierra Leone on her way home. Her captain had died, and Pike took her home in something like record time to be thoroughly congratulated and awarded plate by the owners. RRA then says that Pike continued with a very successful career in the Merchant Service.

In the 1841 census for Jersey there is indeed a Pike, born in 1833, the same year as RRA. So far so good. His name was Bayley Pike. And a Bayley Pike turns up in the service records of naval officers in the National Archives - and yes he was dismissed the Service at Sierra Leone in early 1851 from being Master's Assistant in HMS Hound. So clearly, that much of the story is true.

Next I looked for Pikes in the 1851 census, conveniently taken sometime after Pike would have got home in the 'Indiaman'. Lo and behold, there is a Pike, the right age, in Plymouth, at his father's house (a storekeeper at the Devonport dockyard), and describing himself as "Mate of the Talavera".

(All this is covered in much greater detail in the Appendix of RRA)

But (Oh dear) This Pike is called John Brewer Pike, and is recorded as being born in Plymouth, not Jersey like Bayley Pike in the census ten years before.

And the Talavera? Well, coincidence upon coincidence, she was an 'Indiaman', owned by Duncan Dunbar of Blackwall, and yes, she was on her way home from India at exactly the right time in early 1851!

There is no more trace of 'our' Bayley Pike in the England & Wales or Channel Islands censuses after that solitary appearance in 1841. John Brewer Pike, however, went on to have a successful career in the Merchant Marine as a Master Mariner, and appears in several more E&W censuses.

That's the story in a nutshell. When I wrote the appendix to RRA I became convinced, though there was no positive proof, that Bayley Pike had skippered the Talavera home, and for whatever reason, had 'become' John Brewer Pike, son of Anthony Pike of Plymouth. I had not been able to find the Plymouth Pikes in the 1841 census - but now I have.

There is, of course, the same Anthony Pike, naval storekeeper, and among his children is a boy, the right age, simply registered as 'John Pike'. So surely this must be the John Brewer Pike of ten years later? Mustn't it...? That effectively kicks my theory into touch.

And further mystery is provided by the discovery of a perfectly plausible Bayley Pike as a sheep station manager in the South Island of New Zealand in the late 1850s and early 1860s, and then as a 'sheep inspector' in Queensland in the late 1860s.

But wait a minute - the late 1850s and early 60s was exactly when RRA was first in the South Island of New Zealand! Did he bump into his old school friend from Jersey, the friend he hadn't seen for nearly ten years? Did he and the friend yarn about old times on the Slave Coast? Did Bayley Pike tell him about being dismissed the Service? And the other young officer dismissed from HMS Hound at exactly the same time? (There was one according to RRA's story - but so far untraced and unnamed.) Did RRA do his usual trick of muddling stories? Was the other young man John Brewer Pike? A cousin perhaps of Bayley Pike? Sounds fantastic, but fits the facts better than the suggestion that Bayley Pike changed his name to John Brewer... now that we know that the Bayley Pike from Jersey is almost certainly the very same as the sheep run manager in Canterbury.

One problem: there is no John Brewer Pike in RN Service Records. The quest goes on!

RRA's Second Commission

The lines of 'Star Class' brig/packets. Both Cygnet and the infamous and unhappy Hound were brigs of this class.

RRA's second commission (now as a fully-fledged Midshipman), was on the west Coast of Africa, 1850 to 1853, travelling out in Firefly as a supernumerary, and then serving in Cygnet, Commander Richard Dunning White, 1819-1899.

A brief summary of White's career is given here:


Date Rank
15 April 1826 Entered Navy
5 November 1840 Lieutenant
28 August 1847 Commander
10 May 1856 Captain
19 January 1874 Retired Rear Admiral
1 February 1879 Retired Vice Admiral

Date from Date to Service
December 1843 March 1847
Lieutenant in Sealark, commanded by Thomas Lewis Gooch, west coast of Africa

1 March 1847 September 1847
Commander in Skylark (until paying off at Chatham), west coast of Africa

1 July 1850 May 1853
Commander in Cygnet (until paying off at Portsmouth), coast of Africa

6 January 1855 10 May 1856
Commander in Desperate, the Baltic during the Russian War

15 September 1859 1863
Captain in Madagascar, storeship, Rio de Janeiro

26 May 1865 23 February 1867
Captain in Cossack (until paying off at Sheerness), Mediterranean

186? January 1869
Captain in Mersey, flagship, Queenstown.


His obituary appeared on page 9 of The Times on Monday 31 July 1899:

Vice-Admiral R.D. White, C.B., died on Saturday, at his residence, Heavitree, Exeter, in his 80th year. He was the youngest son of the late Admiral Thomas White, of Buckfast Abbey. In 1826 he entered the Royal Navy as a volunteer of the first class. After filling various minor appointments, he served in Syria, and was present at the capture of St. Jean d'Acre. From 1844 to 1847 and from 1850 to 1853 he was employed on the West Coast of Afica in suppressing the slave trade, and captured many slavers. As the senior officer of the Sierra Leone Division, Admiral White was also employed in settling a somewhat difficult diplomatic question that arose with the French, owing to a French vessel having been captured in error by a British ship. During the Russian war he commanded the Desperate in the Baltic, and captured the first prize of the season. Admiral White was present at the attack on the forts and batteries at the entrance to the river Dwina, near Riga, and at several operations on land in the gulf in command of sailors and marines. He afterwards commanded for four years the Madagascar at Rio de Janeiro, the Cossack in the Mediterranean from 1865 to 1867, and the Mersey at Queenstown from the latter year to 1869. At the conclusion of the Russian war he was officially gazetted and promoted in consequence of "special and distinguished individual services" performed during the war. Admiral White held the medals for Syria, Turkey, and the Baltic, and he was made a C.B. in 1881. He was a justice of the peace for Devon.