375
FOWLER—FOX.
in the Channel, to Sir Gordon Bremer. He was promoted to the rank of Commander on 9 Nov. in the latter year, and is at present on half-pay. Agents – Messrs. Halford and Co.
FOWLER. (Rear-Admiral, 1846. f-p., 17; h-p., 37.)
Robert Merrick Fowler entered the Navy, 6 May, 1793, as Fst.-cl. Vol., on board the Ruby 64, Capt. Sir Rich. Hussey Bickerton, lying at Spithead, where, for two months in 1794, he served as Midshipman in the Royal William, flag-ship of Sir Peter Parker. Until promoted to the rank of lieutenant, 27 Feb. 1800, we afterwards find him joining in succcession the Hector and Cumberland 74’s, Capt. Robt. Montagu, Mercury frigate, Capt. Thos. Rogers, and Royal George 100, flag-ship of Admirals Lord Bridport and Chas. Morice Pole. On the date of his promotion he joined the Xenophon alias Investigator, Capts. John Henry Martin and Matthew Flinders, with the latter of whom he sailed on a voyage of discovery to New Holland. Having assumed command, in the previous May, of the Porpoise armed store-ship, for the purpose of conveying Capt. Matthew Flinders from Port Jackson to England, Mr. Fowler, on 17 Aug. 1803, had the misfortune to lose that vessel on a coral reef near Cato Bank; but he ultimately succeeded in reaching Canton, where he embarked as a passenger on board the Earl Camden East Indiaman, Capt. Nathaniel Dance, the Commodore of a homeward-bound China fleet of 16 sail. In consideration of the assistance afforded to that officer by Mr. Fowler, in beating off, during their voyage, a powerful French squadron under M. Linois, he was presented by the East India Company with the sum of 300l. for the purchase of a piece of plate, and the Patriotic Society also awarded him a sword valued at 50 guineas.[1] He subsequently, in the Dragon 74, Capt. Edw. Griffith, took part in Sir Robt. Calder’s action, 22 July, 1805, and, attaining the rank of Commander 4 Feb. 1806, was further appointed – in 1807, to the Sea Fencibles in Ireland – 27 June, 1808, to the Crocus brig, employed, we believe, in the expedition to the Walcheren – 18 Sept. 1809, to the Charybdis 16, on the Leeward Islands station – and, 20 April, 1811, as Acting-Captain, to a frigate, in which he returned to England with convoy. He went on half-pay in Oct. of the latter year, having been confirmed in Post-rank on the date previously mentioned; and on 1 Oct. 1846, accepted his present rank.
The Rear-Admiral married, 16 June, 1813, Caroline Matilda, eldest daughter of the late Jas. Dashwood, Esq., of Valla- Wood, co. Somerset, and Forest Lodge, co. Berks, and niece of Vice-Admiral Sir Chas. Dashwood, K.C.B. By that lady, who died in 1816, he has, with other issue, two sons, Robert Dashwood, and George Campbell, both in the R.N. Agents – Messrs. Halford and Co.
FOWLER. (Lieut., 1815. f-p., 9; h-p., 32.)
Thomas Richard Fowler was born in 1793.
This officer entered the Navy, 20 March, 1806, as Fst.-cl. Vol., on board the Spartiate 74, Capt. Sir Eras. Laforey, under whom we find him co-operating, as Midshipman, in the reduction, during the summer of 1809, of the islands of Ischia and Procida. While afterwards attached, from the close of the latter year until his attainment of his present rank 11 Feb. 1815, to the Horatio 38, Capts. Geo. Scott, Lord Geo. Stuart, and Wm. Henry Dillon, he assisted at the capture, 21 Feb. 1810, after a long chase and a running-fight of an hour, of La Nécessité French frigate, of 26 guns and 186 men, laden with naval stores and provisions; and on 2 Aug. 1812 he was severely wounded in the arm, and highly spoken of for his conduct, at the capture, off the coast of Norway, by four boats under the orders of Lieut. Abraham Mills Hawkins, of a Danish schooner and cutter, mounting 10 guns between them, after a sanguinary combat in which the British lost altogether men killed and 16 wounded, and the enemy, out of 52 men, 10 killed and 13 wounded.[2] In consideration of the sufferings entailed on him by the latter affair, Mr. Fowler obtained a gratuity of 30l, from the Patriotic Fund, and a Greenwich pension of 10l. He also, during his employment in the Horatio, commanded that ship’s launch in the river Scheldt, and cruized off Berzen-op-Zoom, when besieged by the British army in 1813. Since his promotion he has not been able to procure employment afloat.
Lieut. Fowler, for the last 14 years, has officiated as Secretary to the Ophthalmic Hospital at Charing Cross. He married in 1824.
FOX. (Retired Commander, 1847. f-p., 19; h-p., 33.)
George Fox was born 28 Sept. 1773, at Scarborough, co. York.
This officer entered the Navy, 26 July, 1795, as A.B., on board the Malabar 54, Capt. Thos. Parr, which ship, after assisting at the reduction of Demerara, Essequibo, Berbice, and Ste. Lucie, foundered on her passage home from the West Indies, 10 Oct. 1796. Mr. Fox, who then joined the Pelter gun-brig, Lieut.-Commander Walsh, subsequently became Midshipman of the Pallas 36, Capt. Hon. Henry Curzon, and in that ship was wrecked, in Plymouth Sound, 4 April, 1798. During the next two years we find him chiefly employed in the Foudroyant, Barfleur, and Queen Charlotte, flagships of Lord Keith, under whom he pursued the French fleet up and down the Mediterranean, and served at the blockade of Malta. In Feb. 1800 he assisted Lord Cochrane in navigating Le Généreux, a French ship-of-the-line, which had just been captured, to Minorca; after which he accompanied his Lordship into the Speedy 14 – assisted in that vessel at the capture of a settee of greatly superior force – and on being invested with the charge of the prize, and of a convoy, succeeded in beating off two powerful row-galleys. In June, 1800, having rejoined Lord Keith in the Minotaur 74, Mr. Fox witnessed the fall of Genoa; from the mole of which place he had the singular good fortune, after the battle of Marengo, of effecting the deliverance of a British 64 and two transports, all of which but for his own individual exertions would inevitably have been destroyed. The courage and ability displayed by Mr. Fox on this occasion were so marked as to render his enrolnent among the officers of their ship an object of ambition to many of the Captains of Lord Keith’s fleet, but so high was the opinion entertained of his merits by the Admiral that he was unwilling to part with him, and in consequence retained his services until enabled, on his having passed his examination, to promote him to the rank of Lieutenant. Previously to that event, which took place 23 Aug. 1801, Mr. Fox, who had followed Lord Keith into the Foudroyant, further attended the expedition to Egypt, and had the honour, when Sir Ralph Abercromby was brought on board with his death-wound, to conduct that heroic chief to the cabin which had been assigned to his use. On the occasion of his promotion, he rejoined the Minotaur, then commanded by Capt. Thos. Louis, with whom he returned home and was paid off in March, 1802. His after appointments were to the successive command, on the Home station – 4 Feb. 1804, of the Sheerness tender – 29 Sept. 1810, of the Watchful, a similar vessel – and, 25 May, 1815, of the Brevdrageren gun-brig, which he paid off 24 Aug. following. Mr. Fox, who appears to have been very undeservedly passed over in the general promotion which followed the termination of hostilities, accepted his present rank 28 Jan. 1847.
He married, 24 Feb. 1806, Elizabeth, daughter of Thos. Bamby, Esq., of Sutton, near Hull, an eminent merchant and shipowner, by whom he has an only surviving child.
