A Naval Biographical Dictionary/Thicknesse, John
THICKNESSE. (Retired Captain, 1840. f-p., 18; h-p., 48.)
John Thicknesse died 5 Aug. 1846. He was son (by his third wife, the ony child of Mr. Ford, Clerk of the Arraigns, and niece of Gilbert Ford, Esq., Attorney-General for the island of Jamaica) of Capt. Philip Thicknesse, Lieutenant-Governor of Languard Fort, author of several well-known literary productions, and father, by a former marriage, of George, 18th Lord Audley.
This officer entered the Navy, 25 Nov. 1781, as Captain’s Servant, on board the Flora frigate, Capt. Sam. Marshall, employed in the Channel and also in the West Indies, whence he returned to England and was paid off in 1783. He served next as Midshipman on the Home and West India stations, from July, 1790, until March, 1795, in the Windsor Castle 98, flag-ship of Rear-Admiral Herbert Sawyer, Hannibal 74, Capt. John Colpoys, Intrepid 64, Capt. Hon. Chas. Carpenter, and Europa 50, bearing the flag of Rear-Admiral Ford. On 18 of the month last mentioned he was nominated Acting-Lieutenant of the Scorpion sloop, Capt. Thos. Western; he was confirmed to that vessel 26 May following; and he was next appointed, still in the West Indies – 27 Dec. 1795, to his former ship the Hannibal, Capts. Joseph Bingham, Louis, and Edw. Tyrrell Smith – 11 Aug. 1797 and 16 March, 1798, to the command of the Charlotte brig and Charlotte schooner – and 16 Nov. 1798, to the Queen 98, flag-ship of Sir Hyde Parker. From 11 Nov. 1799;until 16 July, 1801, he served as Acting-Commander and Commander (commission dated 29 Jan. 1800) in the Pelican sloop, in the West Indies and on the coast of France; he commanded for a short time in 1804 the Lady Melville armed ship, in the Channel; and on 5 March and 21 April, 1806, he was appointed to the Hecla bomb and Sheldrake 16. On 12 Oct. in the latter year he was present in an action of an hour and a quarter, fought in the Bay of Erqui, between a British squadron, consisting, with the Sheldrake, of the Constance 22, Strenuous gun-brig, and Britannia cutter, on the one side, and a French force, comprised, on the other, of the Salamandre of 26 guns and 80 men,[1] a 2-gun battery planted on a hill, and one or two field-pieces, together with a few troops on the beach; the result whereof was the surrender of the enemy’s ship after a loss to herself of about 29 men killed, independently of several wounded, and, to the British, of 10 killed and 23 wounded. The prize went on shore almost immediately afterwards, and was set on fire and destroyed by her captors, 38 of whom, in vainly endeavouring to. get her off, were made prisoners. Capt. Alex. Saunderson Burrowes of the Constance[2] having been killed during the height of the conflict, the command of the squadron had devolved upon Capt. Thicknesse. He continued employed in the Sheldrake on the Baltic station until July, 1810. He did not again go afloat. He was placed on the list of Retired Captains 10 Sept. 1840.
Capt. Thicknesse married, 14 May, 1800, Sarah Augusta, only daughter of the late Angus Fraser, Esq., of the Royal Invalids, quartered in Plymouth citadel.
- ↑ The official account says 150 men. – Vide Gaz. 1806, p. 1363.
- ↑ Two hours after the Salamandre had hauled down her colours a shot from the French batteries cut the cables of the Constance, who in consequence drifted on shore, and was subsequently taken by the French into St. Maloes and repaired for sea.