A Naval Biographical Dictionary/Owen, Charles Cunliffe
OWEN. (Commander, 1815. f-p., 14; h-p., 32.)
Charles Cunliffe Owen, the representative of the ancient family of Cunliffe of Wycoller, is eldest surviving son of the late Chas. Owen, Esq., in the commission of the peace for co. Middlesex. He is nephew of the late Henry Owen Cunliffe, Esq., of Wycoller Hall, Lancashire; and of Joseph Owen, Esq., Captain in H.M. 77th Regt., who was killed at the storming of Seringapatam in 1799.
This officer entered the Navy, 6 March, 1801, as Midshipman, on board the Vengeance 74, Capts. Geo. Mundy and Geo. Duff, in which ship he was for about sixteen months employed in the Baltic and West Indies. He served next, until 1806, in the Channel and Mediterranean, in the Venerable 74, bearing the flag of Rear-Admiral Collingwood, Niobe 40, Capt. Matthew Henry Scott, and Wizard sloop, Capt. Edm. Palmer; and he then in succession joined the Northumberland and Belleisle 74’s, flag-ships in the West Indies of Hon. Sir Alex. Cochrane; who, on 10 Aug. 1807, the very day he had accomplished his time, nominated him Lieutenant of the Northumberland, commanded at the period by Capt. Wm. Hargood. Being confirmed, after his return to England, into the Dreadnought 98, by a commission dated 13 Feb. 1808, he continued in that ship, as Acting Flag-Lieutenant to Rear-Admiral Thos. Sotheby, until 1809; in the course of which year he had the misfortune to be taken prisoner, while engaged, under Lieut. John Foreman, in a desperate and unsuccessful attempt to cut a French brig out from under the batteries of Ile d’Aix. After three years of captivity he at length, in 1812, contrived to effect his escape under circumstances of a peculiarly difficult and hazardous character. In the spring of 1813, having been, on his arrival in England, sent out on promotion to the Lakes of Canada, Lieut. Owen there joined the Wolfe 24, bearing the broad pendant of Sir Jas. Lucas Yeo, by whom he was intrusted with the command of a division of boats, and employed on shore in an attack made in May of that year on Sackett’s Harbour. In the following month we find him assuming charge of the Sir Sidney Smith schooner of 12 32-pounder carronades and 86 men; in which vessel, it appears, he was concerned in every engagement that took place during the remainder of the year on Lake Ontario. In the action fought on 28 Sept. at the head of the lake, with a squadron of superior force under Commodore Chauncey, the Sir Sidney Smith, whose loss amounted to 3 men killed and 5 wounded, won distinction by the very gallant manner in which she supported the Royal George 20, Capt. Wm. Howe Mulcaster, and assisted in covering the retreat of the Wolfe, the Commodore’s ship, after that vessel had lost her main and mizen topmasts. On 2 Nov. also, Lieut. Owen served with a force under the immediate orders of Capt. Mulcaster in a successful attack upon an armament assembled, for the invasion of Lower Canada, at French Creek in the river St. Lawrence; where he contrived, with much ability and courage, to place his schooner in an excellent position for annoying the enemy. On 29 March, 1814, a few weeks after he had been placed in acting-command of the Royal George, he was invested with the charge of the flotilla of gun-boats on the river St. Lawrence, for the purpose of conveying specie, stores, provisions, &c., for the Army and Navy, and of affording a channel of communication between the Upper and Lower Provinces. So great were the judgment, zeal, and talent, evinced by Commander Owen in the performance of the duties allotted to him, that, although the scene of his operations extended along more than 60 miles of the enemy’s frontier, not a single boat belonging to the British was captured during the whole term of his command, a period of 10 months. The fatigue, indeed, and the privations endured by himself and his companions appear to have been of a more trying description than experienced by any other branch of the Canadian Service. Yet, as we have said, were his exertions unremitting and ardent in the extreme; and the judicious and energetic manner in which he afforded co-operation to the military whenever an opportunity offered was exhibited in the warm acknowledgments of General Sir Gordon Drummond, Colonel Morrison of the 44th Regt., &c. As may be presumed he obtained the high applause of Sir J. L. Yeo, and was by him recommended in the strongest manner to the notice and favourable consideration of the Admiralty. He was appointed Acting-Commander of the Star sloop, on Lake Ontario, 1 Dec. 1814; but, owing to some informality in his original acting order, he was not confirmed in his present rank until 28 Feb. 1815; about which period he returned home with his friend Sir J. L. Yeo. He has since been on half-pay.
Commander Cunliffe Owen married, 9 Jan. 1821, Mary, only daughter of the late Sir Henry Blosset, Kt., Chief Justice of Bengal, and grandniece of the Countess de Salis, by whom, who died 3 May, 1841, he had issue three sons and one daughter. The eldest son, Henry Charles, a Captain in the Royal Engineers, was recently serving with credit on the Caffre frontier; and the youngest, Francis Philip, a Midshipman R.N., was lately serving in the Superb 80, Capt. A. L. Corry. The second son, Robert Julius, distinguished himself as Midshipman of the Edinburgh 72, Capt. W. W. Henderson, during the operations on the coast of Syria (vide Gazette, 1840, p. 2601), and died on board that ship 9 April, 1841. Agents – Goode and Lawrence.