Algernon Frederick Rous de Horsey
Encyclopedia
Admiral Sir Algernon Frederick Rous de Horsey KCB
(25 July 1827 – 22 October 1922) was a Royal Navy
officer who served in the nineteenth century.
, of Great Glemham Suffolk, and Lady Louise, a daughter of the first Earl of Stradbroke
. His only sister was the Countess of Cardigan, whose reminiscences caused a scandal when they were published.
in 1840 and served on the coast of Syria
later that year. He received the Naval General Service Medal and bar for his service in Syria as well as a medal for his service in Acre given by the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire
. Promoted to Lieutenant
in July 1846 and to Commander
in June 1853, he was given command of the paddle sloop
HMS Devastation that same month and of HMS Victor from November 1855. Promoted to Captain
in September 1857, he commanded HMS Brisk from May 1859, HMS Wolverine
from May 1864, HMS Aurora from November 1865 and HMS Hector
from May 1868. He was Senior Officer on the Lakes of Canada during the Fenian raids
; for this he was awarded the Canadian Medal. In 1871 he was made ADC to Queen Victoria. In July 1872, having been promoted to Commodore
, he became Senior Naval Officer in Jamaica
with his pennant in HMS Aboukir. He captured the Spanish slaver Manuela, and suppressed riots in Jamaica for which he was thanked in Parliament.
He was appointed Commander-in-Chief, Pacific Station
in 1876, with his flag in HMS Repulse
, HMS Shah
and then HMS Triumph
. In this capacity he engaged with the Huáscar
during the Peru
vian civil war. He was made Commander-in-Chief, Channel Squadron
with his flag in HMS Northumberland
in December 1884. He was promoted to full Admiral in April 1885 and placed on retired list in July 1892.
According to Mark Twain
in "The Great Revolution in Pitcairn" (1879), Admiral de Horsey visited Pitcairn Island. Twain quotes from de Horsey's Admiralty report, and the subsequent fictional story hinges on one sentence in the report: "One stranger, an American, has settled on the island - a doubtful acquisition."
He was appointed KCB
on 9 November 1903 and lived at Melcombe House in Cowes
. He frequently contributed letters to The Times
and wrote An African Pilot and The Rule of the Road at Sea. He was chairman of Isle of Wight
magistrates for many years and Deputy Lieutenant. He died on 22 October 1922 and was described by The Times as "Doyen of the Navy".
. His son was Vice Admiral Victor Yorke de Horsey while his other daughter married Major William Croughton of the 3rd Dragoon Guards
.
Order of the Bath
The Most Honourable Order of the Bath is a British order of chivalry founded by George I on 18 May 1725. The name derives from the elaborate mediæval ceremony for creating a knight, which involved bathing as one of its elements. The knights so created were known as Knights of the Bath...
(25 July 1827 – 22 October 1922) was a Royal Navy
Royal Navy
The Royal Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Founded in the 16th century, it is the oldest service branch and is known as the Senior Service...
officer who served in the nineteenth century.
Early life
De Horsey was the son of Spencer de HorseySpencer Horsey de Horsey
Spencer Horsey de Horsey , known until 1832 as Spencer Horsey Kilderbee, was a British Tory politician. He sat in the House of Commons between 1829 and 1841.- Family :...
, of Great Glemham Suffolk, and Lady Louise, a daughter of the first Earl of Stradbroke
Earl of Stradbroke
Earl of Stradbroke, in the County of Suffolk, is a title in the Peerage of the United Kingdom. It was created in 1821 for John Rous, 1st Baron Rous, who had earlier represented Suffolk in the House of Commons...
. His only sister was the Countess of Cardigan, whose reminiscences caused a scandal when they were published.
Naval career
De Horsey joined the Royal NavyRoyal Navy
The Royal Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Founded in the 16th century, it is the oldest service branch and is known as the Senior Service...
in 1840 and served on the coast of Syria
Syria
Syria , officially the Syrian Arab Republic , is a country in Western Asia, bordering Lebanon and the Mediterranean Sea to the West, Turkey to the north, Iraq to the east, Jordan to the south, and Israel to the southwest....
later that year. He received the Naval General Service Medal and bar for his service in Syria as well as a medal for his service in Acre given by the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire
Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...
. Promoted to Lieutenant
Lieutenant
A lieutenant is a junior commissioned officer in many nations' armed forces. Typically, the rank of lieutenant in naval usage, while still a junior officer rank, is senior to the army rank...
in July 1846 and to Commander
Commander
Commander is a naval rank which is also sometimes used as a military title depending on the individual customs of a given military service. Commander is also used as a rank or title in some organizations outside of the armed forces, particularly in police and law enforcement.-Commander as a naval...
in June 1853, he was given command of the paddle sloop
Sloop
A sloop is a sail boat with a fore-and-aft rig and a single mast farther forward than the mast of a cutter....
HMS Devastation that same month and of HMS Victor from November 1855. Promoted to Captain
Captain (naval)
Captain is the name most often given in English-speaking navies to the rank corresponding to command of the largest ships. The NATO rank code is OF-5, equivalent to an army full colonel....
in September 1857, he commanded HMS Brisk from May 1859, HMS Wolverine
HMS Wolverine (1863)
HMS Wolverine was a Jason-class corvette, of the Royal Navy, built at the Woolwich Dockyard and launched on 29 August 1863. Initially commissioned for the North America and West Indies Station, she commenced service on the Australia Station on 7 September 1875 as the flagship, under the command of...
from May 1864, HMS Aurora from November 1865 and HMS Hector
HMS Hector (1862)
HMS Hector was the lead ship of the armoured frigates ordered by the Royal Navy in 1861. Upon completion in 1864 she was assigned to the Channel Fleet. The ship was paid off in 1867 to refit and be re-armed. Upon recommissioning in 1868 she was assigned as the guard ship of the Fleet Reserve in...
from May 1868. He was Senior Officer on the Lakes of Canada during the Fenian raids
Fenian raids
Between 1866 and 1871, the Fenian raids of the Fenian Brotherhood who were based in the United States; on British army forts, customs posts and other targets in Canada, were fought to bring pressure on Britain to withdraw from Ireland. They divided many Catholic Irish-Canadians, many of whom were...
; for this he was awarded the Canadian Medal. In 1871 he was made ADC to Queen Victoria. In July 1872, having been promoted to Commodore
Commodore (Royal Navy)
Commodore is a rank of the Royal Navy above Captain and below Rear Admiral. It has a NATO ranking code of OF-6. The rank is equivalent to Brigadier in the British Army and Royal Marines and to Air Commodore in the Royal Air Force.-Insignia:...
, he became Senior Naval Officer in Jamaica
Jamaica
Jamaica is an island nation of the Greater Antilles, in length, up to in width and 10,990 square kilometres in area. It is situated in the Caribbean Sea, about south of Cuba, and west of Hispaniola, the island harbouring the nation-states Haiti and the Dominican Republic...
with his pennant in HMS Aboukir. He captured the Spanish slaver Manuela, and suppressed riots in Jamaica for which he was thanked in Parliament.
He was appointed Commander-in-Chief, Pacific Station
Pacific Station
The Pacific Station, often referred to as the Pacific Squadron, was one of the geographical divisions into which the Royal Navy divided its worldwide responsibilities...
in 1876, with his flag in HMS Repulse
HMS Repulse (1868)
HMS Repulse was the last wooden battleship constructed for the Royal Navy.She was laid down as a 90-gun second-rate line-of-battle ship with two decks; having been approved for conversion to a broadside ironclad in 1861, work on her was intentionally delayed until the performance of earlier...
, HMS Shah
HMS Shah (1873)
The first HMS Shah was a 19th century unarmoured iron hulled, wooden sheathed frigate of Britain's Royal Navy designed by Sir Edward Reed. She was originally to be named HMS Blonde but was renamed following the visit of the Shah of Persia in 1873....
and then HMS Triumph
HMS Triumph (1870)
HMS Triumph was a broadside ironclad battleship of the Victorian era, the sister-ship of . These two ships comprise the Swiftsure class of 1870....
. In this capacity he engaged with the Huáscar
Huáscar (ship)
Huáscar is a 19th century small armoured turret ship of a type similar to a monitor. She was built in Britain for Peru and played a significant role in the battle of Pacocha and the War of the Pacific against Chile before being captured and commissioned with the Chilean Navy. Today she is one of...
during the Peru
Peru
Peru , officially the Republic of Peru , is a country in western South America. It is bordered on the north by Ecuador and Colombia, on the east by Brazil, on the southeast by Bolivia, on the south by Chile, and on the west by the Pacific Ocean....
vian civil war. He was made Commander-in-Chief, Channel Squadron
Channel Fleet
The Channel Fleet was the Royal Navy formation of warships that defended the waters of the English Channel from 1690 to 1909.-History:The Channel Fleet dates back at least to 1690 when its role was to defend England against the French threat under the leadership of Edward Russell, 1st Earl of...
with his flag in HMS Northumberland
HMS Northumberland (1865)
HMS Northumberland was a long-hulled broadside ironclad warship of the Victorian era, and was the third and final ship of the Minotaur class to be commissioned.-Construction:...
in December 1884. He was promoted to full Admiral in April 1885 and placed on retired list in July 1892.
According to Mark Twain
Mark Twain
Samuel Langhorne Clemens , better known by his pen name Mark Twain, was an American author and humorist...
in "The Great Revolution in Pitcairn" (1879), Admiral de Horsey visited Pitcairn Island. Twain quotes from de Horsey's Admiralty report, and the subsequent fictional story hinges on one sentence in the report: "One stranger, an American, has settled on the island - a doubtful acquisition."
He was appointed KCB
Order of the Bath
The Most Honourable Order of the Bath is a British order of chivalry founded by George I on 18 May 1725. The name derives from the elaborate mediæval ceremony for creating a knight, which involved bathing as one of its elements. The knights so created were known as Knights of the Bath...
on 9 November 1903 and lived at Melcombe House in Cowes
Cowes
Cowes is an English seaport town and civil parish on the Isle of Wight. Cowes is located on the west bank of the estuary of the River Medina facing the smaller town of East Cowes on the east Bank...
. He frequently contributed letters to The Times
The Times
The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...
and wrote An African Pilot and The Rule of the Road at Sea. He was chairman of Isle of Wight
Isle of Wight
The Isle of Wight is a county and the largest island of England, located in the English Channel, on average about 2–4 miles off the south coast of the county of Hampshire, separated from the mainland by a strait called the Solent...
magistrates for many years and Deputy Lieutenant. He died on 22 October 1922 and was described by The Times as "Doyen of the Navy".
Family
He married Caroline, daughter of Admiral Andrew Drew, in 1861 and was the father of Louisa Mary Adeline de Horsey Phillips and grandfather of Admiral Tom PhillipsThomas Phillips (Naval officer)
Admiral Sir Thomas "Tom" Spencer Vaughan Phillips GBE, KCB, DSO was a World War II admiral in the Royal Navy. He was nicknamed "Tom Thumb" due to his short stature. He is best known for his command of Force Z during the Japanese invasion of Malaya, where he went down with his flagship, the...
. His son was Vice Admiral Victor Yorke de Horsey while his other daughter married Major William Croughton of the 3rd Dragoon Guards
3rd Dragoon Guards
The 3rd Dragoon Guards was a cavalry regiment in the British Army, first raised in 1685. It saw service for three centuries, before being amalgamated into the 3rd/6th Dragoon Guards in 1922....
.