A Naval Biographical Dictionary/Dunn, Nicholas James Cuthbert
DUNN. (Commander, 1814. f-p., 36; h-p., 13.)
Nicholas James Cuthbert Dunn was born 18 March, 1785.
This officer entered the Navy, 2 July, 1798, as Sec.-cl. Vol., on board the Tigre 74, commanded by his patron Sir Wm. Sidney Smith. After participating in the defence of St. Jean d’Acre he was obliged to be sent to England, in the summer of 1799, for the cure of a severe wound he had accidentally received in the right leg. Returning to the Mediterranean, in May, 1800, on board the Dolphin, Capt. Jas. Dalrymple, he there joined the Dangereuse gun-vessel, Lieut.-Commander Robt. Tyte, and under that officer was engaged in covering the debarkation of the troops in Aboukir Bay, and throughout all the coast operations connected with the Egyptian campaign in 1801. Until the receipt of his first commission, 22 Jan. 1806, Mr. Dunn appears to have been afterwards attached to the Alexanbria, Capt. Alex. Wilson, Antelope 50, Capts. Sir W. S. Smith, Henry Bazely, Sir Home Popham, and Robt. Plampin, and Pompée 74, bearing the flag of Sir W. S. Smith, while under whom, in the Antelope, he had been in frequent colUsion with the enemy’s flotilla between Flushing and Ostend. During the six years immediately consecutive on his promotion – the whole of which period he served on board the Topaze 36, Capts. Willoughby Thos. Lake, Anselm John Griffiths, Henry Hope, and Edw. Harvey – we find Mr. Dunn figuring in a variety of stirring scenes. Among other gallant affairs he assisted, near Corfu, in a very spirited action which terminated in the beating off by the Topaze of the two French 40-gun frigates Danaë and Flore, 12 March, 1809; and, on the night of 31 Oct. following, he commanded the ship’s launch, forming part of a large detachment of boats under Lieut. John Tailour, at the capture and destruction, after a fearful struggle, and a loss to the British of 15 men killed and 55 wounded, of the French armed store-ship Lamproie, of 16 guns and 116 men, bombards Victoire and Grondeur, and armed xebec Normande, with a convoy of seven merchantmen, defended by numerous strong batteries in the Bay of Rosas.[1] He was also on one occasion, 8 June, 1810, very severely injured by over-exertion during an attack on an enemy’s schooner near Cape Corso, in the island of Corsica. After an additional servitude of two years in the Tenedos 38, Capt. Hyde Parker, employed chiefly in blockading the different ports on the Coast of North America, he was ultimately advanced to his present rank, 9 March, 1814, and appointed to the Indian sloop-of-war, which he brought home and paid off in Oct. of the same year. As Inspecting-Commander of the Waterford district of Coast Guard, which post he held from 12 Dec. 1820, until July, 1832, Commander Dunn rendered such important service to the revenue as to cause a positive increase to the tobacco duties in that county of more than 30,000l. per annum. Being reappointed to the Coast Guard, 26 June, 1835, he served successively in the Ballycastle, Donaghadee, and Swords districts, until 17 July, 1838; and, during a year he was employed at Donaghadee, he again effected an augmentation in the imports on tobacco, as connected with the port of Belfast, of nearly ll,000l. His appointments have since been – 18 March, 1842, to the Ocean 80, guard-ship at Sheerness; and, 28 March, 1843, and 13 June, 1845, to the Victory 100, and Royal Sovereign yacht, for the purpose of superintending the Packet Establishments at Weymouth and Hobb’s Point – on the latter of which stations he is at present employed.
Commander Dunn is married and has issue a son, Lieut. M. B. Dunn, R.N.
DUNN. (Commander, 1814.)
Nicholas James Cuthbert Dunn is married and has issue (with one daughter, Frances Emelia, married to Wm. Crofton, Esq., Surgeon R.N.) three sons – the eldest, Richard Marsh, in the Customs in London; the second, Montagu Buccleuch, a Lieutenant R.N.; and the youngest, William James, First-Lieutenant R.M. (1848).
- ↑ Vide Gaz. 1809, p. 1907.