peoplepill id: william-henry-percy
WHP
United Kingdom Great Britain
2 views today
2 views this week
William Henry Percy
British Royal Navy officer and politician

William Henry Percy

The basics

Quick Facts

Intro
British Royal Navy officer and politician
Work field
Gender
Male
Family
Father:
Algernon Percy, 1st Earl of Beverley
The details (from wikipedia)

Biography

The Honourable William Henry Percy (24 March 1788 – 5 October 1855, 8 Portman Square, London, at his eldest brother's home) was a British Royal Navy officer and politician.

Family

Percy was the sixth son of Algernon Percy, 1st Earl of Beverley, and his wife Isabella Susannah Burrell, daughter of Peter Burrell.

Naval and political career

Entering the navy as a first-class volunteer on board the 64 gun HMS Lion in May 1801 and going with it to China, Percy returned in November 1802 and was posted to the HMS Medusa as a midshipman. (Soon afterwards, his elder brother Josceline was appointed its appointed acting lieutenant.) He was promoted to Lieutenant in 1807. Promoted to commander in 1810, his first command was the troopship HMS Mermaid in 1811. Percy and Mermaid transported troops between Britain and Iberia for the Peninsular War).

He was made post captain on 21 March 1812, but his next command (of the 20 gun HMS Hermes during 1814, operating on the North American coast) came to grief when he lost 50 of his crew wounded or killed in an unsuccessful attack on Fort Bowyer, Mobile and then had to set fire to his own ship to keep her out of enemy hands. A court martial determined that the attack was warranted by the circumstances. Still, this was his last naval service, though he did carry back to England despatches announcing the British defeat at the Battle of New Orleans.

For a while during his retirement he was a commissioner of excise and - thanks to the influence of his maternal aunt's stepson, the second Marquess of Exeter - he sat as Tory MP for Stamford, Lincolnshire from 1818 to 1826. He was made a rear-admiral on the retired list on 1 October 1846.

Percy died unmarried in October 1855, aged 67.

The contents of this page are sourced from Wikipedia article. The contents are available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license.
Lists
William Henry Percy is in following lists
comments so far.
Comments
From our partners
Sponsored
William Henry Percy
arrow-left arrow-right instagram whatsapp myspace quora soundcloud spotify tumblr vk website youtube pandora tunein iheart itunes