Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Teddeman, Thomas
TEDDEMAN, Sir THOMAS (d. 1668?), vice-admiral, was presumably one of a family who had been shipowners at Dover at the close of the sixteenth century Defeat of the Spanish Armada, Navy Records Society, i. 86). His father, also Thomas, was still living at Dover in 1658, and is probably the man described as a jurate of Dover in a commission of 28 Oct. 1653. It is, however, impossible to discriminate between the two, and the jurate of 1653 may have been the future vice-admiral. In either case Teddeman does not seem to have served at sea during the civil war ; but in 1660 he commanded the Tredagh in the Mediterranean, and in May was cruising in the Straits of Gibraltar and as far east as Algiers ; on 31 May he met off Algiers six Spanish ships, which he chased into Gibraltar and under the guns of the forts. In November 1660 he was appointed captain of the Resolution; in May 1661 of the Fairfax. In 1663 he commanded the Kent, in which, in July, he carried the Earl of Carlisle to Archangel on an embassy to Russia. In May 1664 he was moved into the Revenge ; and in 1665, in the Royal Katherine, was rear-admiral of the blue squadron, with the Earl of Sandwich, in the action off Lowestoft. For this service he was knighted on 1 July. Afterwards, still with Sandwich, he was at the attack on Bergen and the subsequent capture of the Dutch East Indiamen [see Montagu, Edward, Earl of Sandwich]. Still in the Royal Katherine, he was vice-admiral of the blue squadron in the four days' fight, 1-4 June 1666, and vice-admiral of the white in the St. James's fight, 25 July. He had no command in 1667, and his name does not occur again. His contemporary, Captain Henry Teddeman, also of Dover, was presumably a brother; and the name was still in the 'Navy List' a hundred years later.
[Charnock's Biogr. Nav. i. 47; State Papers, Dom., Charles II (see Calendars).]