Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Mainwaring, Rowland

1445989Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900, Volume 35 — Mainwaring, Rowland1893Gordon Goodwin

MAINWARING, ROWLAND (1783–1862), naval commander and author, born on 31 Dec. 1783, was second son of Rowland Mainwaring (1745–1815), a field-officer, of Four Oaks, Warwickshire, by his second wife, Jane, daughter of Captain Latham, R.N. (Burke, Landed Gentry, 7th edit. ii. 1213). Entering the navy, he was present at the battle of the Nile (1798) as midshipman in the Majestic, and he served in the Defence at the blockade of Copenhagen (1801). On 13 Aug. 1812 he was gazetted to the command of the Caledonia, 120, the flagship of Sir Edward Pellew (Lord Exmouth), but he did not serve after the peace of 1815. He was promoted captain on 22 July 1830, and was placed on the list of retired rear-admirals on 27 Sept. 1855. In 1837 Mainwaring succeeded his first cousin, Miss Sarah Mainwaring, in the estates of Whitmore Hall, Newcastle-under-Lyme, and Biddulph, Staffordshire. He died at Whitmore Hall on 11 April 1862 (Gent. Mag. 1862, pt. i. p. 657). He married thrice, and left a large family. Mainwaring, who was a tolerably good artist, published ‘Instructive Gleanings, Moral and Scientific, from the best Writers, on Painting and Drawing,’ 8vo, London, 1832. He also compiled ‘Annals of Bath, from 1800 to the passing of the new Municipal Act,’ 8vo, Bath, 1838, a miscellany of amusing local gossip.

[Family information; Navy Lists.]

G. G.