Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 05.djvu/423

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Boscawen
415
Boscawen

a fine of 5l. in order to escape the trouble and expense of going to court, and of being made a knight of the Bath; and his grandson, Hugh, did the same at the coronation of Queen Mary. All the earlier Boscawens, though wealthy, were unambitious and undistinguished. The first who claims notice is Hugh, the great-grandson of the last-named Hugh Boscawen, who appears to have formed that intimate connection between Truro and his family which has so long subsisted. This Hugh was recorder of the borough, knight of the shire for Cornwall in 1626, and was 'Chief of the Coat Armour' at the herald's visitation of 1620. He married Margaret Rolle, and died in 1641. Of his sons, (1) Edward, a rich Turkey merchant, was M.P. for Truro in each of Charles II's parliaments; married Jael Godolphin, and their son Hugh [q.v.] became the first Viscount Falmouth. Another son, (2) Nicholas, a parliamentarian officer, died unmarried when only twenty-two years of age, and was buried in Westminster Abbey. At the Restoration his remains were flung into a common pit in St. Margaret's churchyard. Of his offspring the most noteworthy were Hugh, the second viscount, who died in 1782, a shrewd electioneerer, but otherwise of no particular ability; Nicholas, a doctor of divinity and dean of Buryan; John, a major-general in the army; George, who was at Dettingen and Fontenoy; and Edward, Pitt's 'Great Admiral' [q. v.] By his marriage with Anne Trevor, General George Boscawen had a son named William [q. v.], of some literary note. George Evelyn, third Viscount Falmouth, youngest son of the admiral (issue having failed through the admiral's two elder brothers), entered the army, was present at Lexington, and in 1787 distinguished himself at Truro by the admirable manner in which he succeeded in pacifying a large and riotous mob of angry miners. He died in 1808. Of his elder brothers, Edward Hugh, who was M.P. for Truro, died abroad in 1774; and William Glanville, an officer in the navy, was drowned at Port Royal, Jamaica, when only eighteen years of age, in 1769. The third viscount's sister, Frances, married the Hon. John Leveson Gower, secretary to the admiralty; her sister Elizabeth's husband was Henry, fifth duke of Beaufort. Edward Boscawen [q. v.], the son of the third viscount, became first earl of Falmouth. His son, George Henry, by his wife Anne Frances Bankes, was the fifth viscount and second (and last) earl. He was a man of considerable ability, taking in 1832 a double first-class at Oxford. He died unmarried in 1852. He was succeeded in the viscounty by his cousin Evelyn, grandson of the third viscount by his second son, John Evelyn, canon of Canterbury.

[Playfair's British Family Antiquity (1809), ii. 11-13; Sir E. Brydges' Collins's Peerage, vol. vi.; Chester's Registers of Westminster Abbey; Vivian's Annotated Visitations of Cornwall, pt.ii. p. 46, &c; Lysons's Magna Britannia (Cornwall); Lake's Parochial History of Cornwall; Tregellas's Cornish Worthies.]

W. H. T.

BOSCAWEN, EDWARD (1711–1761), admiral, third son of Hugh, first Viscount Falmouth [q. v.], and of Charlotte, eldest daughter of Charles Godfrey, and his wife, Arabella Churchill, sister of the Duke of Marlborough and mother of the Duke of Berwick, was born on 19 Aug. 1711. On 3 April 1726 he joined the Superbe, of 60 guns, one of the ships which sailed for the West Indies with Vice-admiral Hosier on 9 April [see Hosier, Francis]. In the Superbe he continued for nearly three years. For the next three years he was in the Canterbury, the Hector, and the Namur, bearing the flag of Sir Charles Wager, all on the home station or in the Mediterranean. On 8 May 1732 he passed his examination, and on 26 May was promoted to the rank of lieutenant. In August he was appointed to the Hector, on the Mediterranean station. On 16 Oct. 1735 he was discharged into the Grafton, and from her was, on 12 March 1736-7, promoted by Sir John Norris to command the Leopard. It was only for a couple of months, but the admiralty confirmed the commission, and in June 1738 he was appointed to the Shoreham of 20 guns. In June 1739 he was sent out to the West Indies, and was already there when the orders for reprisals against the Spaniards came out. In November, when Vernon sailed for his celebrated attack on Porto Bello, the Shoreham was refitting at Jamaica, and as she could not be got ready in time, Boscawen was permitted to serve on board the flagship as a volunteer; and after the capture was specially employed, under Captain Knowles, in demolishing the forts. He continued in the Shoreham under Vernon's command during 1740; and early in 1741 was attached to the expedition against Cartagena. In the naval operations such a ship as the Shoreham had little share; but on shore, whilst the soldiers were hesitating in front of the castle on the left side of the Boca Chica, Boscawen, in command of five hundred men, seamen and marines, surprised by night, took and destroyed a formidable battery on the right or south side, 17-18 March 1740-1. On 23 March he was promoted to the command of the Prince Frederick, vacant by the