A Naval Biographical Dictionary/Norris, Joseph
NORRIS. (Lieutenant, 1812. f-p., 9; h-p., 33.)
Joseph Norris was born 16 Aug. 1789. This officer entered the Navy, 10 Nov. 1805, as Midshipman, on board the Apollo 3S, Capt. Edw. Fellowes, with whom he removed, in July, 1808, to the Conqueror 74, and continued to serve, chiefly in the Mediterranean, until made Lieutenant, 22 Feb. 1812, into the Polyphemus 64, Capt. Peter John Douglas, on the West India station, whither he proceeded in the Jason 32, Capt. Hon. Jas. Wm. King. While in the Apollo, besides assisting at the cutting out of many of the enemy’s vessels on the coast of Calabria, he was present in 1807 at the landing of the troops under Major-General Fraser in Egypt, where he witnessed the surrender of Alexandria, and had command of a boat on Lake Etko at the reduction of Rosetta. During the term of his servitude in the Conqueror he came into frequent contact with the enemy in the neighbourhood of Toulon; on one occasion in particular, 20 July, 1810, when that ship, in company with the Warspite and Ajax 74’s, rescued in a most gallant manner the Euryalus frigate and Shearwater brig from being captured by a powerful division of the enemy’s fleet, consisting of six sail of the line and four frigates. We also find him, 11 Sept. 1811, commanding one of three boats under the orders of Lieut. Rich. Howell Fleming, at the destruction, in noon day, of an armed vessel chained from her masts to the shore, at Aras, in the gulf of Genoa, where the British encountered so fierce an opposition that 2 of their number were killed and 9 wounded. During the passage home of the Polyphemus with convoy in the autumn of 1812, Lieut. Norris was placed in command, as Prize-Master, of the James Maddison captured American schooner, of 12 guns. In that vessel, on the merchantmen being dispersed in a gale, he succeeded in re-collecting 20 of them; the whole of which, after having beaten off an American privateer of superior force, he conducted in safety to England, receiving, on his arrival, the thanks of the Committee at Lloyd’s. His last appointments were, 2 Feb. 1813 and 17 Oct. 1814, to the Persian and Mercurius sloops, Capts. Chas. Bertram and Thos. Renwick. In the Persian he was wrecked, as detailed in our memoir of Capt. Bertram, on the Silver Keys, in the West Indies, 16 June, 1813: and in the Mercurius he was actively employed off the coast of France during the war of a hundred days. He has been on half-pay since 18 Sept. 1815.
He married, 1 Jan. 1818, Ann Grigg, sister of Jas. Cassell, Esq., First-Lieutenant R.M., and niece of Lieut.-Colonel Cassell, of the same corps, by whom he has issue four children.