Page:A Naval Biographical Dictionary.djvu/622

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KENNICOTT—KENT.

bon station, until the close of 1839 — 7 Dec. 1840, as First-Lieutenant, to his old ship the Excellent — and, 27 May, 1841, to the Dublin 50, flag-ship in the Pacific of Rear-Admiral Bich. Thomas. He was advanced to the rank of Commander on 23 of the following Nov., and has since been on half-pay.



KENNICOTT. (Commander, 1846. f-p., 24; h-p., 20.)

Gilbert Kennicott was born in 1789.

This officer entered the Navy, 26 July, 1803, as Fst.-cl. Vol., on board the Venerable 74, Capt. Geo. Reynolds, bearing the flag in the Channel of his friend and patron the late Lord Collingwood, whom he successively followed, as Midshipman, into the Culloden 74, Prince 98, Venerable again, Dreadnought 98, Royal Sovereign 100, and Ocean 98. In the Royal Sovereign at Trafalgar he received nearly 40 wounds and lost the sight of his right eye;[1] in consequence whereof he was allowed a pension of 10l. so long as he should continue a petty officer, and was presented by the Patriotic Society with the sum of 50l. In Oct. 1807, a few months after he had been appointed Master’s Mate of the Hind frigate, Capt. Fras. Wm. Fane, Mr. Kennicott had the misfortune, while in charge of a small detained Greek vessel, to be wrecked off the island of Cyprus. He fell in consequence into the hands of the Turks, and was by them held a prisoner until late in 1809. He then joined the Seahorse 38, Capt. John Stewart, and, on 28 Jan. 1810, he was nominated by Lord Collingwood to a Lieutenancy in his ovrn ship, the Ville de Paris – an act which the Admiralty confirmed by commission dated 22 Aug. in the same year. Removing, not long afterwards, to the Minorca 18, Capt. Ralph Randolph Wormeley, Lieut. Kennicott, in Nov. 1810, was again placed in command of a detained (American) vessel, whose crew, of themselves equal in number to the British, conjoined with one-half of the latter, and succeeded in re-capturing and carrying her into Marseilles. A second time thus a prisoner-of-war, the Lieutenant, after he had been for some time confined in a common gaol, was conducted to Verdun, and there kept en parole until the conclusion of the war. His next appointments were, in April and Sept. 1815, to the Mosquito 18, Capts. Jas. Tomkinson and Geo. Brine, and Leveret 10, Capt. John Theed; in the latter of which vessels he remained on the St. Helena station until obliged to invalid, for the benefit of his health, 3 June, 1817. From 17 Sept. 1836, until advanced to the rank of Commander 9 Nov. 1846, he was employed in the Coast Guard, and on more than one occasion rendered good service to the revenue. He is now on half-pay.

Commander Kennicott was re-awarded, 20 Sept. 1817, a pension for his wounds of 91l. 5s., together with two years’ arrears. He is married, and has issue two daughters, one of whom, Sophia Elizabeth, became the wife, in Nov. 1841, of Capt. W. Calder, late of the 8th Regt. Agent – Joseph Woodhead.



KENT. (Lieutenant, 1847.)

Charles KentCharles Kent passed his examination 4 June, 1845; and after serving as Mate on board the Excellent gunnery-ship, Capt. Henry Ducie Chads, Spartan 26, Capt. Thos. Matthew Chas. Symonds, and Dido 18, Capt. John Balfour Maxwell, on the Home and East India stations, was promoted to the rank of Lieutenant 9 June, 1847. He has been since employed as Additional of the Vernon 50, flag-ship in India of Rear-Admiral Samuel Hood Inglefield.



KENT. (Commander, 1822. f-p., 22; h-p., 25.)

Henry Kent, born at Glasgow, is youngest brother of Commander Wm. G. C. Kent, R.N.

This officer entered the Navy, in July, 1800, as Fst.-cl. Vol., on board the Fortitude prison-ship at Portsmouth, Lieut.-Commander John Gourly, from which he was discharged in Aug. 1801. He re-embarked, in April, 1803, on board the Salvador del Mundo guard-ship at Plymouth, bearing the flags of Sir John Colpoys and Sir Wm. Young, under whom he continued until appointed Midshipman, in March, 1804, of the Goliath 74, Capts. Chas. Brisbane, and Robt. Barton. In Feb. 1806, after he had been intermediately employed in the Channel and off the coast of Ireland, he joined the Révolutionnaire frigate, Capt. Chas. Fielding, stationed off the coast of Spain; on his removal from which ship to a Master’s Mateship in the Hussar 38, Capt. Robt. Lloyd, he accompanied the expedition of 1807 to Copenhagen, and then proceeded to the West Indies and North America. In June, 1809, Mr. Kent was promoted, from the Swiftsure 74, flag-ship of Sir John Borlase Warren, to an Acting-Lieutenancy in the Horatio 38, Capt. Geo. Scott. He next, in Nov. 1809, and April, 1810, joined, again in the capacity of Midshipman, the Pompée 74, and Neptune 98, flag-ships of Sir Alex. Cochrane in the Leeward Islands. On 14 March, 1811, it was Mr. Kent’s fortune to be confirmed a Lieutenant in La Fantome sloop, Capt. John Lawrence. In that vessel, which was at first stationed in the North Sea and on the Spanish coast, he ultimately proceeded to the Chesapeake, where, in different attacks made upon the enemy’s works, he distinguished himself as a brave and meritorious officer. In Jan. 1814, with a degree of zeal highly creditable to him, Lieut. Kent started from Halifax as a volunteer, at the head of upwards of 100 officers, seamen, and marines, for the purpose of proceeding to Lake Ontario, there to join the force under Sir Jas. Lucas Yeo. After traversing a distance of nearly 1000 miles across an uninhabited country, covered with snow and woods, he at length, in the month of March, reached Kingston, where he was immediately appointed First-Lieutenant of the Princess Charlotte frigate, Capt. Wm. Howe Mulcaster, then on the stocks, but which his officer-like, active, unremitting, and strenuous exertions were the main cause of being ready to join in the expedition of May against Oswego. On the occasion of the attack he had the personal command of the Princess Charlotte, owing to the absence of her Captain; and his conduct, we are informed, was zealous, brave, and intelligent in the extreme. Continuing in Canada, he assumed command, in June, 1814, of a division of the flotilla on Lake Ontario, as he did, in Aug. 1815 and Nov. 1816, of the Tecumseh and Newash schooners on Lakes Erie and Huron. In June, 1817, he was appointed Superintendent of the Naval Depôt on the eve of construction at Penetenguishne, on the lake last mentioned. In 1819, in consequence of a severe attack of fever and ague, which lasted eight months, and reduced him to a mere skeleton, he removed to the establishment on Lake Champlain, where he remained until Oct. 1822. He then returned home with his officers and men after an absence of 10 years, during which period he had undergone hardships of no ordinary character; and on 26 Dec. in that year he was at last promoted to the rank of Commander. He has since been on half-pay.

In Nov. 1834 Commander Kent was appointed a Stipendiary Magistrate at Jamaica, a post he still retains. He married, 24 Aug. 1824, his first-cousin, Eliza, relict of the late Jas. Chas. Grant, Esq., of Burton Crescent, London, and eldest daughter of Capt. Wm. Kent, R.N., who died in command of the Union 98, on the Mediterranean station. By that lady he has issue. Agents – Messrs. Stilwell.



KENT. (Commander, 1814. f-p., 15; h-p., 34.)

William George Carlile Kent, born about 1788, in Lanarkshire, N.B., is second son of the late John Kent, Esq., who, after having served for upwards of 20 years as a Purser in the Navy, was appointed, in 1803, Steward of the Royal Naval Hospital at Plymouth, where he died in 1827; and brother (with the present Commander Henry Kent, R.N.) of Lieut. John Kent, R.N. (1809), formerly Senior of the Thais 20, who died from the effects of over-exertion in his profession in Jan. 1816, as also of Commander Bartholomew Kent, R.N. (1815),

  1. Vide Gaz. 1805, pp. 1411-1484.