R.N. (1794), who served on board the Glory 98, in Lord Howe’s action of the 1st of June; and, secondly, in Aug. 1844, Mary, daughter of the late W. Ferris, Esq., of Her Majesty’s Revenue Service, niece of Commander Thos. Bevis, R.N., and cousin of the late Rear-Admiral Abel Ferris. By his former wife he had four children; and by his present he also has issue. Agents – Messrs. Stilwell.
TOMLINSON. (Lieutenant, 1826.)
James Ward Tomlinson is eldest son of the late Vice-Admiral Nicholas Tomlinson.
This officer entered the Navy 11 Oct. 1813; passed his examination in 1820; and was promoted to the rank of Lieutenant 1 Feb. 1826, as a reward for his conduct during the war in Ava; where he served with the British flotilla in a brilliant and decisive attack made upon the village of Than-ta-bain, 7 Oct. 1824, commanded the boats of the Arachne 18, Capt. Henry Ducie Chads, at the defeat, 15 Dec. following, of 200 of the enemy’s war-boats on the Lyne branch of the river Irawady, and was present, 6 Feb. 1825, at the capture of a 36-gun stockade at the above-named Than-ta-bain. His appointments have since been – 31 March, 1828, to the Badger 10, Capt. Chas. Crowdy, employed on particular service – 10 Dec. 1829, after a few months of half-pay, to the Coast Blockade, in which he remained, as a Supernumerary of the Hyperion 42, Capt. Wm. Jas. Mingaye, until the early part of 1832 – 17 Sept. 1832 and 9 Dec. 1833, to the Britannia 120 and Talavera 74, Capts. Peter Rainier and Edw. Chetham, both in the Mediterranean, whence he returned in 1835 – 9 Feb. 1842, for upwards of 12 months, to the post of Admiralty Agent on board a contract mail steam-vessel – and 24 Nov. 1845, to the command, which he still retains, of the Harpy steam-vessel, of 200 horse-power, on the south-east coast of America. Agents – Goode and Lawrence.
TOMLINSON. (Vice-Admiral of the White, 1841. f-p., 27; h-p., 48.)
Nicholas Tomlinson died 6 March, 1847, at Middleton House, near Lewes, co. Sussex. He was third son of the late Capt. Robt. Tomhnson, R.N., by Sarah, only daughter of Dr. Robinson, President of the College of Physicians, and grand-daughter of Dr. Robinson, Bishop of Carlisle. He was descended from Colonel John Tomlinson, of Burntcliffe Thorn, in the West Riding of Yorkshire, who was conspicuous for the part he took in the civil wars during the reign of Charles I. Two of his nephews, Nicholas Robinson and Robert Cosby Tomlinson, are Lieutenants R.N.
This officer entered the Navy, 15 March, 1772, as Fst.-cl. Vol., on board the Resolution 74, Capts. Wm. Hotham and Chaloner Ogle, of which ship, stationed at Chatham and Spithead, his father was Senior-Lieutenant. Removing, in Jan. 1776, to the Thetis 32, Capts. Michael Graham and John Gill, he made two voyages in that frigate to St. Helena, and, after cruizing oif the coasts of France and Spain, proceeded to the coast of North America. In March, 1779 (he had left the Thetis in the preceding Dec), he joined the Charon 44, Capts. Hon. John Luttrell and Thos. Symonds; to the former of whom he acted as aide-de-camp at the storming, 19 Oct. following, of the strong fortress of St. Fernando de Omoa, in the bay of Honduras, where 250 quintals of quicksilver and several Spanish ships, whose cargoes were estimated at 3,000,000 dollars, fell into the hands of the victors. Under Capt. Symonds Mr. Tomlinson assisted, in company with the Bienfaisant 64, at the capture, 13 Aug. 1780, off Kinsale, of the Comte d’Artois French privateer of 64 guns and 644 men. In the early part of 1781, having accompanied Brigadier-General Arnold, in command of a gun-boat, on an expedition up the rivers of Virginia, he was for 30 or 40 days, while so employed, in constant action with the enemy. On 10 Oct. 1781 the Charon, engaged at the time in the defence of York Town, was destroyed by hot shot from the enemy’s batteries; and from that period until the surrender of the army under Earl Cornwallis, Mr. Tomlinson was employed on shore in command of one of the British advanced batteries, and behaved in a manner that gainedhim his Lordship’s personal thanks. In the following Dec. he returned to England in a cartel with Capt. Symonds; and on 23 March, 1782, he was made Lieutenant into the Bristol 50, Capts. Jas. Gambier and Jas. Burney. In April, 1783, a few days after the Bristol had arrived with convoy in Madras Roads, Mr. Tomlinson, who was First-Lieutenant and had volunteered to repair to the assistance of the Duke of Athol Indiaman, was blown up in that ship and received a severe contusion in his breast and left side, besides being otherwise much injured.[1] In the ensuing June he was present, off Cuddalore, in Sir Edw. Hughes’ fifth and last action with M. de Suffrein. He was subsequently appointed, in the capacity of Lieutenant – 4 Sept. 1784, to the Juno 32, Capt. Jas. Montagu, for a passage to England, where he arrived in March, 1785 – 23 June, 1786, for three years and nine months, to the Savage sloop, Capts. Rich. Rundle Surges and Dickinson, on the Scotch station – in June, 1790, during the Spanish armament, to the Impress service at Greenook – 11 July, 179-3, to the Regulus 44, Capt. Edw. Bowater, on the Portsmouth station – 15 July, 1794, to the command (five months after ill health had obliged him to leave the Regulus) of the Pelter gun-vessel – 23 Sept. 1795, to the Glory 98, Capt. Theophilus Jones, lying at Spithead – and, 22 Oct. following, to the command of the Vésuve gun-brig. In the Juno, Savage, Regulus, and Glory he was First-Lieutenant. While attached to the Savage he jumped on one occasion overboard and saved the life of Mr. Campbell, a young gentleman who could not swim; and on another he hastened in a small boat, at imminent hazard, to the aid of a fisherman who had been overset in a heavy gale. On quitting the Impress service he obtained command, through the recommendation of Lord Hawke, of a ship-of-the-line belonging to the Russian navy; but on the prospect of a rupture between England and France he returned to his own service, and was appointed, as above, to the Regulus. During his command of the Pelter, Mr. Tomlinson performed a variety of dashing exploits. In a single boat he boarded and carried, in open day, a lugger lying within pistol-shot of a battery at a place where the adjacent sand-hills were lined with troops. He endured a skirmish subsequently with three armed vessels (two of them equal in force to the Pelter) under a battery in the road of Etaples; in July, 1795, while co-operating with the Royalists in Quiberon Bay, he so distinguished himself, particularly by the manner in which he saved a body of troops from falling a sacrifice to republican fury, that he was publicly thanked by Sir John Borlase Warren on the quarter-deck of La Pomone; and on 10 Aug. following, having silenced a battery at the mouth of the river Crache, he took one of a fleet of chasse-marées which had there sought protection. Previously to the latter affair the Pelter, in company with three other gun-vessels, had destroyed a corvette of 24 guns and a national cutter in the Morbihan river. Worn out by the fatigue they had undergone, 30 of her crew, out of 50, were at length obliged to keep to their hammocks, and the health of the remainder, including their Commander, was so much impaired that the vessel was obliged to be towed home by the Robust 74. On 30 Nov. 1795 Mr. Tomlinson, then in the Vesuve, was promoted to the command of La Suffisante sloop of 14 guns. In her, after a chase of 11 hours and an action of 30 minutes, he made prize, 27 May, 1796, between Ushant and the Main, of La Revanche French national brig of 12 long 4-pounders and 85 chosen men if and in the following month, besides re-taking six valuable British merchantmen;[2] he captured La Patriote and Le Morgan privateers (the latter mount-
