321
DYER.
Hon. Chas. Elphinstoue Fleeming, Téméraire 98, bearing the flag of Rear-Admiral Fras. Pickmore, Unité again, Capt. Edwin Henry Chamberlayne, and Weasel and Minstrel sloops, both commanded by Capt. John Strutt Peyton. During that period, among other services, Mr. Dwyer was actively employed in the blockade of Carthagena and of Toulon, and at the siege of Cadiz; and, when in the Unité, he took part, on 1 May, 1811, in a very gallant action of an hour and a half in Sagone Bay, where that frigate, in company with the Pomone 38, and Scout 18, effectually destroyed the two armed store-ships Giraffe and Nourrice, each mounting from 20 to 30 guns, and protected by a 5-gun battery, a martello tower, and a body of about 200 regular troops. On 4 July in the same year he further contributed, in the Unité’s boats, under Lieut. Joseph Wm. Crabb, to the capture, beneath a shower of grape from a battery at Port Hercule, on the Roman coast, of the armed and vigorously defended brig St. François de Paule; and, in the course of the same day, he assisted Capt. A. W. J. Clifford, of the Cephalus, in very spiritedly cutting out three merchant-vessels from between Civita Vecchia and the mouth of the Tiber.[1] On 12 Aug. 1812 – (he had been unknowingly promoted to the rank of Lieutenant by commission dated 21 of the previous March) – we find Mr. Dwyer landing from the Minstrel (as a preliminary step to the capture of three privateers, two of which had been hauled on shore in the port of Biendom, near Alicant), and, at the head of a party of only seven men, successfully storming, in face of a desperate resistance, a battery of 6 9-pounders, garrisoned by eighty Genoese, the crews of the two vessels alluded to. Before, however, Mr. Dwyer and his little band of heroes, after spiking the guns of the battery, could regain their boat, they were surrounded by a detachment of 200 French troops, and were ultimately overwhelmed; but not until, of the British handful, 1 man had been killed, the 6 others desperately wounded, and their gallant leader stabbed by a bayonet in seventeen different places of his left arm and side, besides receiving, as in other parts of his body, a desperate gun-shot wound through the right shoulder, which has ever since deprived him of the use of that arm. We may add that, in admiration of their consummate valour, the prisoners were at once set at liberty by their generous enemy; and that Mr. Dwyer, who, as a matter of course, afterwards obtained a pension for his wounds of 91l. 5s., was also presented with an elegant sword by the Patriotic Society. Being next appointed, 16 July, 1813, to the Révolutionnaire 38, Capt. John Chas. Woolcombe, he occasionally served in the trenches at the ensuing siege of St. Sebastian, and materially hastened the fall of that important place by commanding the division of boats which stormed and captured the island of Sta. Clara. He afterwards made a voyage to China, and when at the Cape of Good Hope, in July, 1816, was the chief instrument, by his energy and activity, of saving the Révolutionnaire and her consort the Zebra from destruction, both those vessels having been stranded, during a tremendoust hurricane, in Simon’s Bay. Quitting the Révolutionnaire in Dec. 1816, Lieut. Dwyer subsequently commanded the Bittern tender, of 10 guns, on the Plymouth station, from 12 Nov. 1824, until 7 Jan. 1826; and, on 9 March, 1842, he was appointed to the Fearless surveying-steamer, Capt. Fred. Bullock. Being in command of that vessel on the occasion of the Queen’s visit to Scotland, he was at length, on Her Majesty’s return, promoted to the rank he now holds, 21 Sept. 1842. He has not since been afloat. Agent – J. Hinxman.
DYER. (Commander, 1827. f-p., 23; h-p., 9.)
George Shepherd Dyer, born 20 Jan. 1801, at Greenwich Hospital, is second son of John Dyer, Esq., formerly Secretary of that institution, and Chief Clerk of the Admiralty.
This officer entered the Navy, 29 June, 1815, as Fst.-cl. Vol., on board the Volcano bomb, Capt. John Wyatt Watling, on the Home station, where, and in the West Indies and South America, he served, during the next seven years, occasionally as Midshipman, in the Belle Poule troop-ship, Capt. Fras. Baker, Julia brig, Capt. J. W. Watling, Bucephalus troop-ship, Capt. Amos Freeman Westropp, Vengeur 74, Capt. Thos. Alexander, Florida 20, Capt. Chas. Sibthorpe John Hawtayne, Sybille 44, bearing the flag of Sir Home Popham, Inconstant 36, Commodore Sir Jas. Lucas Yeo, Leven 24, Capt. David Ewen Bartholomew, Active 38, Capt. Sir Jas. Alex. Gordon, Albion 74, Capt. Rich. Raggett, Active again, Capt. Andrew King, Beaver brig, Capt. Archibald Maclean, and Créole 36, Commodore Sir Thos. Masterman Hardy. He became Acting-Lieutenant, 5 Feb. 1823, of the Doris frigate, Capt. Edw. Venables Vernon, and, being confirmed 1 April following, was afterwards appointed – 31 Jan. 1824, to the Victory 104, flag-ship at Portsmouth of Sir Geo. Martin – 27 July, 1825, to the Glasgow 50, Capt. Hon. Jas. Ashley Maude – and 1 March, 1826, to the Ganges 84, flag-ship at the Brazils of Rear-Admiral Robt. Waller Otway. Assuming the rank he now holds, 17 April, 1827, Commander Dyer, on 6 Nov. in that year, obtained the Second Captaincy of the Melville 74, Capts. Henry Hill, Alex. Wilmot Schomberg, and Christ. John Williams Nesham, with whom he successively served, on the Lisbon and Mediterranean stations, until paid off in Sept. 1831. He afterwards officiated, as an Inspecting Commander in the Coast Guard, at Lyme Regis, Harwich, and at Westport, co. Mayo, from 17 April, 1832, until 1835, and again from 27 Sept. 1838, until 1843. Since the latter date he has been on half-pay.
Commander Dyer married, 29 June, 1826, Adelaide, daughter of John Williams, Esq., of Elm Grove, Southsea, Comptroller of the Customs at Portsmouth, by whom he has issue four children.
DYER, Bart. (Commander, 1810. f-p., 22; h-p., 43.)
Sir Thomas Swinnerton Dyer, born 4 Nov. 1771, is eldest son of the late Thos. Dyer, Esq., by Mary, relict of Wm. Berney, Esq., of Barbadoes; brother of Sir John Dyer, K.C.B., who was killed 2 July, 1811; and nephew of Sir John Swinnerton Dyer, Bart., a Lieut. -Colonel in the Army, and a Groom of the Bedchamber to George IV., when Prince of Wales, who died in 1801. He succeeded his first-cousin, the late Lieut.-General Sir Thos. Rich. Swinnerton Dyer, as eighth Baronet, in April, 1838.
This officer entered the Navy in 1782, on board the Union 90, Capts. Dalrymple and Moistin, and, toward the close of the same year, was present at the relief of Gibraltar, and in Lord Howe’s partial action with the combined fleets of France and Spain. Between Aug. 1783 and the receipt of his first commission, 29 June, 1793, he appears to have next served, on the Home and Mediterranean stations, in the Elizabeth 74, Capt. Moistin, Culloden 74, Capt. Cotton, Carysfort 28, Capt. Matthew Smith, Leander 50, flag-ship of Admiral Joseph Peyton, Bulldog 16, Capt. Thos. Peyton, Alfred 74, Capt. John Bazely, and Victory 100, bearing the flag of Lord Hood. Joining then the Egmont 74, Capts. Archd. Dickson and John Sutton, he served on shore at the occupation of Toulon in Aug. 1793, and, early in the following year, contributed to the reduction of Corsica, where he landed at the taking of the tower of Mortella, and witnessed the capture and destruction of the French frigates Minerve and Fortunée. While in the same ship, Mr. Dyer, besides participating in Hotham’s action of 13 July, 1795, boarded, and assisted in bringing out of Tunis Bay, 9 March, 1796, the French vessels Nemesis of 28, and Sardine of 22 guns. Prior to the peace his appointments were, next, to the Mahonesa 40, Capts. John Ferris Devonshire and John Giffard, Hector 74, Capt. Peter Aplin, Blenheim 90, bearing the flag of Sir
- ↑ Vide Gaz. 1811, p. 1864.
