Family background Schomberg was the grandson of Dr.
Meyer Löw Schomberg, a practicing Jew who settled in London in 1720. Meyer's son, also named Alexander, converted to the Church of England, a requirement of the
Test Act, to enter the Royal Navy Vol. 15 (1939-1945), pp. 1–28 (28 pages) . Alexander Wilmot Schomberg was the second son of Captain Sir
Alexander Schomberg and Mary Susannah Arabella, the only child of the Reverend Henry Chalmers, and niece of
Sir Edmund Aleyn. His brother was Captain Sir
Charles Marsh Schomberg.
Early naval career He entered the Navy in April 1785 as a first-class volunteer aboard , commanded by his father in the Irish Sea. He later served as a
midshipman aboard , under the command of Captain Lambert Brabazon, for about 2 years, before joining the 98-gun , flagship of
Sir Richard Bickerton at Plymouth, late in 1789. He went on to serve aboard the frigate , Captain Edmund Dodd, attached to the
Channel Fleet, and then in the 50-gun , flagship of Sir
John Laforey on the
West Indies Station. There he was promoted to lieutenant on 26 July 1793, to serve aboard the sloop , Captain
Lord Henry Paulet, and then the frigate , Captain William Hancock Kelly. During the action, Schomberg, commanding the lower deck, found that he did not have enough men to fight all the guns on both sides, so resorted to forming them into gangs, who loaded and ran the guns out, then moved on to the next gun, while two men pointed and fired. Schomberg was commended for his conduct, and on 28 July was appointed
first lieutenant of the frigate . Unfortunately, the ship was destroyed by an explosion while moored at
Plymouth Dock while he was travelling to join her, and it was not until January 1796 that he received command of the 14-gun brig , in which he served on the coasts of Holland and Norway, at Newfoundland, off Cherbourg, and on the Guernsey and Jersey stations. He was promoted to
commander on 2 April 1798, but remained in
Rambler until 1 January 1801, when he was promoted to
post-captain. and on 31 October 1807 he was appointed to command of the frigate
Loire. In early 1808
Loire and the frigate , Captain John Ayscough, sailed to the seas around Greenland on fishery protection duties, venturing as far north as
77° 30' N. At the end of the same year, accompanied by and , he escorted a convoy of 168 transport ships, carrying 14,000 troops, from
Falmouth to
Corunna. He then co-operated with Spanish
partisans on the coasts of
Galicia,
Asturias, and
Biscay, brought 100 Russian prisoners-of-war from the
Tagus to England, and on 5 February 1809 captured the French ship
Hebe (which later served as ). Early in 1810 he transported a battalion of the
60th Regiment from England to
Barbados; and during the
siege of Guadeloupe, he commanded a squadron stationed to intercept enemy vessels. He returned to England with the French
Captain-General Jean Augustin Ernouf and his suite on board, surviving a hurricane which sank two transports full of prisoners. He then proceeded to the coast of Norway, where he saved the sloop from an attack from eight Danish brigs. Until 1812 Schomberg was chiefly employed in command of a light squadron in the Baltic. He once escorted an outward-bound West India convoy as far as
Madeira; and in December 1810 narrowly escaped disaster being in company with , shortly before she was wrecked. On 23 November 1841 he was promoted to vice admiral, and to admiral on 9 October 1849. ==Personal life==