(Mundy, Life of Rodney, i. 296). On 30 July he wrote again: ‘John is very well, and has been kept constantly at sea to make him master of his profession. He is now second lieutenant of the Sandwich, having risen to it by rotation; but still I send him in frigates; he has seen enough of great battles. All he wants is seamanship, which he must learn. When he is a seaman he shall be a captain, but not till then’ (ib. i. 357). By 14 Oct. 1780, being then only fifteen, he was able to satisfy his father's requirements, and was promoted to be commander of the Pocahontas, and the same day to be captain of the Fowey. In compliment to his father these very irregular promotions were confirmed to their original date, on 22 May 1782 (Commission and Warrant Book). During 1781 he was captain of the Boreas frigate, and in April 1782 was moved to the Anson, in which he returned to England at the peace. In March 1795 he was appointed to the Vengeance, but in August, before she was ready for sea, he accidentally broke his leg. It had to be amputated, and he was superseded. In June 1796 he was appointed one of the commissioners of victualling, and in February 1799, on being passed over in the flag promotion, his name was removed from the list of captains. He continued a commissioner of victualling till August 1803, when he was appointed chief secretary to the government of Ceylon, in which office he remained till 1832 (Order in Council, 3 Dec.). He was then, on a memorial to the king in council, replaced on the navy list as a retired captain, and so continued till his death on 9 April 1847.
[Mundy's Life and Correspondence, in which last the language has been altered to suit the taste of the editor; Hannay's Rodney (English Men of Action); Rodney and the Navy of the Eighteenth Century, in Edinburgh Rev., January 1892; Official letters and other documents in the Public Record Office; Naval Chronicle, i. 354, xxxi. 360, 363; Charnock's Biogr. Nav. v. 204; Beatson's Naval and Military Memoirs; United Service Journal, 1830, vol. ii.; White's Naval Researches; Matthews's Twenty-one Plans of Engagements in the West Indies; Clerk's Essay on Naval Tactics (3rd edit.); Ekins's Battles of the British Navy; Sir Howard Douglas's Statement of some Important Facts, &c. (1829), and Naval Evolutions (1832); Sir John Barrow's Rodney's Battle of 12 April, in Quarterly Review, xlii.; Foster's Peerage; Chevalier's Hist. de la Marine Française pendant la Guerre de l'Indépendance Américaine; Troude's Batailles navales de la France.]
RODWELL, GEORGE HERBERT BUONAPARTE (1800–1852), author, musical director and composer, the brother (not the son) of James Thomas Gooderham Rodwell, playwright and lessee of the Adelphi Theatre (d. 1825), was born in London, 15 Nov. 1800. A pupil of Vincent Novello [q. v.] and Sir Henry Rowley Bishop [q. v.], Rodwell was in 1828 professor of harmony and composition at the Royal Academy of Music. Upon the death of his brother James in 1825, Rodwell succeeded to the proprietorship of the Adelphi Theatre. He mainly occupied himself with directing the music at the theatre, and in composition for the stage. His opera, ‘The Flying Dutchman,’ was produced at the Adelphi in 1826, and ‘The Cornish Miners’ at the English Opera House in 1827. His marriage with Emma, the daughter of John Liston [q. v.], the comedian, improved his theatrical connection, though, according to the ‘Gentleman's Magazine,’ the union proved ‘very unfortunate.’ In 1836 he was appointed director of music at Covent Garden Theatre, where a farce by him, ‘Teddy the Tiler,’ from the French, had been performed in 1830. The Covent Garden management sought popularity by anticipating the repertory of Drury Lane; and Rodwell, though friendly with Bunn, the Drury Lane manager, was somewhat unscrupulous in this regard. When Auber's opera, ‘The Bronze Horse,’ was announced at Drury Lane, he brought out at Covent Garden an opera on the same theme, with music by himself. In some cases Rodwell wrote the words as well as the music. His principal librettist was Fitzball; but Buckstone, James Kenney, and Richard Brinsley Peake also supplied him with romances, burlettas, operettas, and incidental songs for musical setting. He was fortunate to find exponents of his clever and tuneful ballads in artists like Mrs. Keeley, Mrs. Waylett, and Mary Anne Paton [q. v.] But his efforts to establish a national opera in England had no lasting result. For many years Rodwell resided at Brompton. He died, aged 52, at Upper Ebury Street, Pimlico, on 22 Jan. 1852, and was buried at Brompton cemetery.
Rodwell wrote some forty or fifty musical pieces for the stage, besides songs, works on musical theory, romances, farces, and novels. Among his publications were:
- ‘Songs of the Birds,’ 1827.
- ‘First Rudiments of Harmony,’ 1831.
- ‘Letter to the Musicians of Great Britain,’ 1833.
- ‘Memoirs of an Umbrella,’ a novel, 1846.
[Gent. Mag. 1852, i. 309; Grove's Dictionary, iii. 143; Baptie's Handbook; Musical Times, 1852, p. 337; Theatrical Observer, 1825–50, passim; Registers of Wills, P. C. C., St. Alban's, 4; Fitzball's Life, passim; Bunn's The Stage, ii. 9; Horne's edition of Croker's Walk … to Fulham, pp. 49, 76; Rodwell's Works.]
