Fairfax Moresby

Early career

Moresby was born on 29 November 1786 in Calcutta, part of the Bengal Presidency in British India, the son of Mary (née Rotton, 1767–1830) and Lieutenant Colonel (with 2nd Stratfordshire Militia) Fairfax Moresby Sr (1753-1820) of Lichfield.

He joined the Royal Navy in December 1799. He transferred to the first-rate HMS Royal George later that year, to the sixth-rate HMS Alarm in the Channel Squadron in March 1802 and to the fifth-rate HMS Amazon in the Mediterranean Fleet in November 1802. He became a master's mate in the third-rate HMS Puissant at Portsmouth in December 1805 and then transferred to the first-rate HMS Hibernia, flagship of the Earl St Vincent, and saw action during the blockade of Brest during the Napoleonic Wars.

Promoted to lieutenant on 10 April 1806, Moresby was appointed to the first-rate HMS Ville de Paris and, after transferring to the third-rate HMS Kent in 1807, took part in the blockade of Rochefort. He then returned to the Adriatic Sea where he led a naval brigade providing artillery support to the Austrian forces during the siege of Trieste in October 1813.

Moresby became commanding officer of the sixth-rate HMS Menai in April 1819 and went on to be senior naval officer at the Cape of Good Hope early in 1820 and then senior officer at Mauritius in 1821, with orders to suppress the slave trade: he concluded the Moresby Treaty with Seyyid Said, the imam of Muscat in September 1822 restricting the scope of local slave trading and conferring on English warships the right of searching and seizing local vessels. In one action he boarded the schooner Camilla and freed 140 slaves. Moresby became commanding officer of the third-rate HMS Pembroke in the Mediterranean Fleet in January 1837 and commanding officer of the third-rate HMS Canopus in the Channel Squadron in March 1845.

Senior command

Promoted to rear admiral 20 December 1849, Moresby became Commander-in-Chief of the Pacific Station, with his flag in the fourth-rate HMS Portland in August 1850. Moreover, he proposed the establishment of the Esquimalt Naval Base on the West Coast of Canada, a recommendation which was taken up by the Admiralty in 1860.

Moresby was advanced to Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath on 5 July 1855, promoted to vice-admiral on 12 November 1856 and promoted to full admiral on 12 April 1862. He was advanced again to Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath on 28 March 1865 and appointed Rear-Admiral of the United Kingdom on 20 April 1867 and then Vice-Admiral of the United Kingdom on 17 July 1869. He was promoted to Admiral of the Fleet on 21 January 1870.

Moresby died at his home near Exmouth in Devon on 21 January 1877 and was buried at St Margaret and St Andrew's Church, Littleham. After his death Port Moresby in Papua New Guinea and Fairfax Harbour on which it stands were named after him, as were the Moresby Islands in British Columbia.

Family

In August 1814, Moresby married in Malta with Eliza Louisa Williams, youngest daughter of John Williams of Bakewell, Derbyshire: they had two daughters: Ellen Mary (1820-) and Mary (1824-1908), and three sons: Commander Fairfax Moresby (1826–1858) who died in the wreck of the brig HMS Sappho off the coast of Victoria, Matthew Fortescue Moresby (1828-1918), a photographer in Australia, and Rear Admiral John Moresby (1830-1922) who surveyed the coast of New Guinea).

References

Sources

References

1. (2004). "Sir Fairfax Moresby".
2. He was assigned to the [[second-rate]] [[HMS London (1766). HMS ''London'']] as an [[able seaman]] but was promoted to [[midshipman]] and took part in the unsuccessful [[Ferrol Expedition. expedition]] to capture [[Ferrol, Galicia
3. In HMS ''Amazon'' he took part in the pursuit of the French Fleet, under the command of Admiral [[Pierre-Charles Villeneuve]], to the West Indies and back in Summer 1805.Heathcote, p. 177
4. "Fairfax Moresby: Presentation Sword". National Maritime Museum.
5. Heathcote, p. 178
6. {{London Gazette. (21 December 1849)
7. His main responsibility was to protect British commercial interests in [[Valparaíso]] in the face of unrest among the people of [[Chile]]. He also took an interest in [[Pitcairn Islands]] at this time and planned the emigration of the islanders to [[Norfolk Island]] which took place in 1856.Campbell, p. 610
8. {{London Gazette. (10 July 1855)
9. {{London Gazette. (2 December 1856)
10. {{London Gazette. (20 May 1862)
11. {{London Gazette. (28 March 1865)
12. {{London Gazette. (23 April 1867)
13. {{London Gazette. (20 July 1869)
14. {{London Gazette. (1 February 1870)
15. "Father commanded the Northern Spray on Convoy ONS5". Mac's Web Log.
16. "John Moresby". National Centre of Biography, Australian National University.
17. Bosher, p. 504
18. (6 July 2014). "Admiral Sir Hugo White: Commander who fought off Exocet attacks during the Falklands War and was later Governor of Gibraltar". The Independent.