A Naval Biographical Dictionary/Sulivan, Thomas Ball

by William Richard O'Byrne

Layout 4

SULIVAN, C.B. (Captain, 1814.)

Thomas Ball Sulivan was born 5 Jan. 1781. He is first-cousin of Capt. Thos. Ross Sulivan, R.N.

This officer entered the Navy, in 1786, as Captain’s Servant, on board the Triumph 74, Capt. John Knight, bearing the flag of Lord Hood at Portsmouth, where he followed the Admiral into the Barfleur 98, and was employed, until 1793, in the Bombay Castle 74, Capt. John Thos. Duckworth, Hannibal 74, Capt. John Colpoys, and Cambridge 74, Capts. Wm. Locker and Boger. He served next, from July, 1794, until April, 1797, in the Channel and Mediterranean, the chief part of the time as Midshipman, in the Audacious 74, Capts. Alex. Hood and Wm. Shield, Southampton 32, Capt. Shield, Audacious again, Capts. Aug. Montgomery and Davidge Gould, and Royal George^[1] 100, flag-ship of Lord Bridport; and on 26 of the month last mentioned he was made Lieutenant into the Queen Charlotte 100, Capt. Walter Locke. His next appointments were – 19 July, 1797, to the Scorpion sloop, Capts. Stair Douglas and Horace Pine, in the North Sea – 1 Jan. 1798, to the Director, Capt. Wm. Bligh, lying in Yarmouth Roads – 15 March, 1798, to the Kite sloop, Capts. Wm. Brown, Chas. Lydiard, Stephen Thos. Digby, and Philip Pipon, under whom he was for seven years employed in the North Sea and Baltic and off Guernsey – and, 10 May and 26 Dec. 1805, to the Brisk 18, Capt. John Coode, and Anson 38, Capts. Fred. Langford and Chas. Lydiard, on the Irish and Jamaica stations. In the Kite he accompanied the expedition sent under Sir Home Popham, in May, 1798, to destroy the locks and sluice-gates of the Bruges Canal, and was present, in Sept. 1803, at the bombardment of Granville. While serving, as First, in the Anson, he assisted, in company with the Arethusa 38, at the capture, 23 Aug. 1806, near the Havana, after a spirited action, in which the British sustained a loss of 2 men killed and 32 wounded, of the Pomona Spanish frigate of 38 guns and 347 men, laden with specie and merchandize, and defended by a castle mounting 11 36-pounders, and a flotilla of 10 gun-boats, all of which were destroyed.^[2] On 15 Oct. following he took part in a skirmish with the Foudroyant, a French 80, in which the Anson had 2 men killed and 13 wounded; and on 1 Jan. 1807 he contributed to the brilliant reduction of Curaçoa. As a reward for his conduct on the latter occasion he was promoted to the rank of Commander 23 Feb. 1807. He continued in the Anson as a volunteer until that ship was lost, with her Captain and about 60 of the crew, near the Lizard, 29 Dec. in the same year; and he was subsequently appointed – in Jan. 1809, to the Transport service – 4 Nov. 1809, for two months and a half, to the Eclipse, on the Plymouth station – and, 2 Feb. 1813 and 26 March, 1814, to the Woolwich 44, armée en flûte, and Weser troop-ship. In the Woolwich (in which ship he was wrecked on the north end of the island of Barbuda in a violent hurricane, 6 Nov. 1813) he conveyed Sir Jas. Lucas Yeo, 4 Commanders, 8 Lieutenants, 24 Midshipmen, upwards of 400 seamen, and the frames of several gun-vessels from England to Quebec, for the Lake service in Canada. During his command of the Weser he was employed with great activity on the North American station. At the destruction of Commodore Barney’s flotilla up the Patuxent, 22 Aug. 1814, being the Senior-Commander present, he had charge of a division of boats and tenders, and by his “cheerful and indefatigable exertions” proved himself “most justly” entitled to the “warmest acknowledgments” of Rear-Admiral Cockburn, by whom he was earnestly recommended to the favourable notice of Sir Alex. Cochrane.^[3] In his despatch to the Commander-in-Chief, announcing the failure of the Baltimore expedition, the Rear-Admiral thus expresses himself: “It is, Sir, with the greatest pride and pleasure I report to you that the brigade of seamen with small arms, commanded by Capt. Edw. Crofton, assisted by Capts. Sulivan, Money, and Ramsay (the three Senior Commanders in the fleet), who commanded divisions under him, behaved with a gallantry and steadiness which would have done honour to the ablest troops, and which attracted the admiration of the army.”^[4] In March, 1815, Capt. Sulivan, who had been promoted to Post-rank 19 Oct. 1814, left the Weser. He was nominated a C.B. 4 June following. On 18 March, 1836, he obtained command of the Talavera 74, at Plymouth; and from 26 Nov. in that year until paid off on his return to England in the spring of 1841 he served as Commodore on the South American station, with his broad pendant in the Stag 46. He accepted the Retirement 1 Oct. 1846.

Capt. Sulivan married, 19 March, 1808, Henrietta, youngest daughter of the late Rear-Admiral Bartholomew James, by whom he has had issue 14 children. Three of his sons are in the Naval service, one of them, Bartholomew James, a Captain.

---

1. The Royal George was one of the ships implicated in the Spithead mutiny.
2. On the Pomona striking her colours she was immediately notwithstanding a severe fire from the castle, taken possession of by Lieut. Parish, First of the Arethusa, followed bv Lieut. Sulivan. – Vide Gaz. 1806, p. 1535.
3. Vide Gaz. 1814, p. 1941.
4. Vide Gaz. 1814, p. 2077.