Sir John Duckworth, 1st Baronet

Born in Leatherhead, Surrey, England, Duckworth was one of five sons of Sarah Johnson and the vicar Henry Duckworth A.M. of Stoke Poges, County of Buckinghamshire. The Duckworths were descended from a landed family, with Henry later being installed as Canon of Windsor. John Duckworth briefly attended Eton College, but began his naval career in 1759 at the suggestion of Edward Boscawen, when he entered the Royal Navy as a midshipman on . Namur later became part of the fleet under Sir Edward Hawke, and Duckworth was present at the Battle of Quiberon Bay on 20 November 1759. On 5 April 1764, he joined the 50-gun at Chatham, after leaving , to serve with Admiral Hugh Palliser, then Governor of Newfoundland. He served aboard HMS Princess Royal, on which he suffered a concussion when he was hit by the head of another sailor, decapitated by a cannonball. He spent some months as an acting lieutenant, and was confirmed in the rank on 14 November 1771. He then spent three years aboard the 74-gun , the Plymouth guardship, under Captain Charles Fielding. Fielding was given command of the frigate in early 1776, and he took Duckworth with him as his first lieutenant., the Diamond was sent to join Vice-Admiral John Byron's fleet in the West Indies. Byron transferred him to his own ship, , in March 1779, and Duckworth was present aboard her at the Battle of Grenada on 6 July 1779. Duckworth was promoted to commander ten days after this and given command of the sloop-of-war . After cruising off Martinique for a time, he was promoted to post captain on 16 June 1780 and given command of the 74-gun . He returned to the Princess Royal as flag-captain to Rear-Admiral Sir Joshua Rowley, with whom he went to Jamaica. He was briefly in command of , before moving into in February 1781, and returned to England with a trade convoy. In the years of peace before the French Revolution he was a captain of the 74-gun , lying at Plymouth. ==Revolutionary wars service==

Fighting against France, Duckworth distinguished himself both in European waters and in the Caribbean. He was initially in command of the 74-gun from 1793 and served in the Channel Fleet under Admiral Lord Howe. He was in action at the Glorious First of June. and later landing sailors and marines from his ships, which included HMS Cormorant and , to support the Army. He was promoted to rear-admiral of the white on 14 February 1799 following Minorca's capture, and "Minorca" was later inscribed on his coat of arms. In June his squadron of four ships captured Courageux. In April 1800 was in command of the blockading squadron off Cádiz, and intercepted a large and rich Spanish convoy from Lima off Cádiz, consisting of two frigates (both taken as prizes) and eleven merchant vessels, Duckworth was nominated a Knight Companion of the most Honourable Military Order of the Bath in 1801 (and installed in 1803), ==Service against Napoleon==

West Indies From 1803 until 1804, Duckworth assumed command as the commander-in-chief of the Jamaica Station, during which time he directed the operations which led to the surrender of General Rochambeau and the French army, following the successful Blockade of Saint-Domingue. Duckworth was promoted to vice-admiral of the blue on 23 April 1804, and he was appointed a Colonel of Marines. He succeeded in capturing numerous enemy vessels and 5,512 French prisoners of war. In recognition of his service, the Legislative Assembly of Jamaica presented Duckworth with a ceremonial sword and a gold scabbard, inscribed with a message of thanks. On his return to England again, he was called to face court-martial charges brought by Captain James Athol Wood of HMS Acasta, who claimed that Duckworth had transgressed the 18th Article of War; "Taking goods onboard other than for the use of the vessel, except gold & etc." Duckworth had apparently acquired some goods, and in wishing to transport them home in person reassigned Captain Wood to another vessel on Jamaica station knowing that the vessel was soon to be taken under command by another flag officer. Consequently, Duckworth was able to take the goods to England as personal luggage, and Wood was forced to sail back as a passenger on his own ship. The court-martial was held on board in Portsmouth on 25 April 1805, but the charge was dropped on 7 June 1805. Atlantic In 1805 the Admiralty decided that Duckworth should raise his flag aboard HMS Royal George and sail to join Vice-Admiral Horatio Nelson off Cádiz as third in command. However, the Plymouth Dockyards could not make Royal George ready to sail in time, and Duckworth was directed to raise his flag in HMS Superb, with Captain Richard Keats as his flag-captain. Keats was to have been Nelson's second. The Superb was exiting the Channel when she intercepted the Pickle carrying news of the victory and of Nelson's death and did not arrive off Cádiz until well after the battle. On the basis of the writings of ships boy Edward Trelawney some have said the delay was due to Duckworth's refusal to sail from Portsmouth until his favourite musicians had arrived from another ship. Correspondence between Duckworth and the Admiralty confirms his upset at being required to sail ‘without his comforts’, but that his final orders were not issued until 28 October when Superb had finally been released from the docks after an urgent refit. They did not arrive off Cádiz until 15 November, after the Battle of Trafalgar had been fought. Duckworth was then ordered to take command of the West Indies squadron involved in the blockade of Cádiz, with seven sail of the line, consisting of five 74-gun ships, the 80-gun and the 64-gun , and two frigates. Although known for a cautious character, he abandoned the blockade and sailed in search of a French squadron under Admiral Zacharie Allemand, which had been reported by a frigate off Madeira on 30 November, on his own initiative. While searching for the French, which eventually eluded him, he came across another French squadron on 25 December, consisting of six sail of the line and a frigate. This was the squadron under Contre-Admiral Jean-Baptiste Willaumez, heading for the Cape of Good Hope, and pursued by Rear-Admiral Sir Richard Strachan. Duckworth gave chase and came within seven miles of the enemy, but at that point his ships being well separated, to the dismay and disappointment of the men, he decided not to risk engaging and abandoned the pursuit. ==Return to the West Indies==

Duckworth then set sail for the Leeward Islands to take on water, dispatching the 74-gun to reinforce the East Indies squadron. There, at Saint Kitts, he was joined on 21 January 1806 by the 74-gun ships and commanded by Sir Alexander Cochrane, and on 1 February a brig commanded by Nathaniel Day Cochrane, which brought news of French at San Domingo. The French had a squadron of five ships: the 120-gun Imperial, two 84-gun and two 74-gun ships and two frigates, under the command of Vice-Admiral Corentin Urbain Leissègues which escaped from Brest and sought to reinforce the French forces at San Domingo with about 1,000 troops. Arriving at San Domingo on 6 February 1806, Duckworth found the French squadron with its transports anchored in the Occa bay. The French commander immediately hurried to sea, forming a line of battle as they went. Duckworth gave the signal to form two columns of four and three ships of the line. Battle of San Domingo In the Battle of San Domingo, Duckworth's squadron defeated the squadron of French when Duckworth at once made the signal to attack. Keats and his crew having accompanied Nelson in the pursuit of Villeneuve to the West Indies were still lamenting having missed Trafalgar. Keats silently suspended a portrait of Nelson from the mizzen stay before addressing the men in a manner intended to encourage enthusiasm for the cause in the coming battle. With the band playing ‘God save the King’ and ‘Nelson of the Nile’ the Superb having made up all ground on the fleeing enemy fired her starboard broadside as she was laid up against the Imperiale, the largest ship in the French navy. The conflict soon became general. In a severe action of two hours, two of the French ships were driven ashore and burnt with three others captured. Only the French frigates escaped. Despite this, it is thought that Duckworth was lucky to have with him captains who were used to working together instinctively and who consistent with the Nelson approach, had no need to wait for any central direction from the Admiral and the credit for the victory was due more to the initiative of the individual British captains. San Domingo was added to Duckworth's coat of arms as words; a British sailor was added to the supporters of the Arms in 1814. A promotion to vice-admiral of the white in April 1806 followed, along with the presentation of a sword of honour by the House of Assembly of Jamaica, while his naval feats were acknowledged with several honours, including a sword of honour by the corporation of the City of London. On his return to England, Duckworth was granted a substantial pension of £1,000 by an act of Parliament, and the freedom of the city of London. Duckworth also displayed the willingness of accept changing tactics employed by Nelson, and maintained the superiority of British naval gunnery in battle. It was, however, widely thought that but for this graphic demonstration of British sea-power and significant victory he may well have faced a court martial for having abandoned his post off Cádiz without orders to do so. Mediterranean Duckworth was appointed second in command of the Mediterranean Fleet in 1805 primarily on consideration by the Admiralty of having a senior officer in the forthcoming operations with the Imperial Russian Navy. Sailing in the 100-gun first-rate HMS Royal George with eight ships of the line and four smaller vessels, he arrived at the island of Tenedos with orders to take possession of the Ottoman fleet at Constantinople, thus supporting Dmitry Senyavin's fleet in the Dardanelles operation. Accompanying him were some of the ablest Royal Navy officers such as Sidney Smith, Richard Dacres and Henry Blackwood but he was in doubt of having the capability to breach the shore batteries and reach the anchored Ottoman fleet. Aware of Turkish efforts to reinforce the shore artillery, he nevertheless took no action until 11 February 1807 and spent some time in the strait waiting for a favourable wind. In the evening of the same day Blackwood's ship, accidentally caught fire while at anchor off Tenedos, and was destroyed, although her captain and most of the crew were saved and redistributed among the fleet. Finally, on 19 February, at the action at Point Pisquies (Nagara Burun), a part of the British force encountered the Ottoman fleet which engaged first. One 64-gun ship of the line, four 36-gun frigates, five 12-gun corvettes, one 8-gun brig, and a gunboat were forced ashore and burnt by the part of the British fleet. The British fleet consisted of , under Captain Thomas Harvey, , under Captain John Talbot, , under flag captain Richard Dacres, and , under Captain Arthur Kaye Legge, as well as the frigate , under Captain Richard Hussey Mowbray, under the command of Rear-Admiral Sir Sidney Smith, commanding the rear division. They took one corvette and one gunboat, and the flags of the Turkish Vice-Admiral and Captain Pasha in the process, with adjacent fortifications destroyed by landing parties from HMS Thunderer, HMS Pompée, and HMS Repulse, while its 31 guns were spiked by the marines. The marines were commanded by Captain Nicholls of HMS Standard who had also boarded the Turkish ship of the line. There were eight 32 lb and 24 lb brass guns and the rest firing marble shot weighing upwards of 200 pounds. On 20 February, the British squadron under Duckworth, having joined Smith with the second division of ships under command of Rear-Admiral Sir Thomas Louis, reached the Ottoman capital, but had to engage in fruitless negotiations with the Sultan's representatives, advised by Napoleon's ambassador Sébastiani, and with the accompanying British ambassador Charles Arbuthnot and Russian plenipotentiary Andrey Italinski, the latter being carried aboard on , under the command of Captain Thomas Bladen Capel, due to the secret instructions that were issued as part of his orders for the mission, and therefore losing more time as the Turks played for time to complete their shore batteries in the hope of trapping the British squadron. Though blamed for indecisiveness, notably by Thomas Grenville, the First Lord of the Admiralty, Duckworth announced that I must, as an officer, declare to be my decided opinion that, without the cooperation of a body of land forces, it would be a wanton sacrifice of the squadrons to attempt to force the passage After his departure from Constantinople, Duckworth summed up this expedition, in reflection on the service of the year by commenting that Instead of acting vigorously in either one or the other direction, our cabinet comes to the miserable determination of sending five or six men-of-war, without soldiers, to the Dardanelles, and 5000 soldiers, without a fleet, to Alexandria. Soon after, he married again, on 14 May 1808 to Susannah Catherine Buller, a daughter of William Buller, the Bishop of Exeter. They had two sons together before his death, she survived him, dying on 27 April 1840. ==The Channel Fleet==

Duckworth's career however did not suffer greatly, and in 1808 and 1810 he went on to sail in HMS San Josef and HMS Hibernia, some of the largest first-rates in the Royal Navy, as commander of the Channel Fleet, In the summer of 1809 he served on the panel of judges at the Court-martial of James, Lord Gambier which assessed whether Admiral Lord Gambier had failed to support Captain Lord Cochrane at the Battle of Basque Roads in April 1809. Gambier was controversially cleared of all charges. ==Newfoundland and War of 1812==

Probably because he was thought of as irresolute and unimaginative, on 26 March 1810 Duckworth was appointed Governor of Newfoundland and Commander-in-Chief of the Newfoundland Station's three frigates and eight smaller vessels. Although this was a minor command in a remote station spanning from Davis Strait to the Gulf of St Lawrence, he also received a promotion to admiral of the blue, flying his flag aboard the 50-gun . ==Semi-retirement==

On 2 December 1812, soon after arriving in Devon, Duckworth resigned as governor after being offered a parliamentary seat for New Romney on the coast of Kent. At about this time he found out that his oldest son George Henry had been killed in action while serving in the rank of a Colonel with the Duke of Wellington, during the Peninsular War. George Henry had been killed at the Battle of Albuera at the head of the 48th (Northamptonshire) Regiment of Foot. and in January 1815 was appointed Commander-in-Chief, Plymouth 45 miles from his home; a post considered one of semi-retirement by his successor, Lord Exmouth. However, on 26 June that year it became a centre of attention due to the visit by bearing Napoleon to his final exile, with Duckworth being the last senior British officer to speak with him before his departure on board . Duckworth died at his post on the base in 1817 at 1 o'clock, after several months of illness; after a long and distinguished service with the Royal Navy. He was buried on 9 September at the church in Topsham, where he was laid to rest in the family vault, with his coffin covered with crimson velvet studded with 2,500 silvered nails to resemble a ship's planking. ==Memorials==

When in England for winters during his term as Governor of Newfoundland, Duckworth lived on a property called Weare House of Weare Park in Topsham, Devon. He had purchased the house in 1804 and rebuilt over several years. His property, and half of the golf course that the Exeter Golf and Country Club now occupies, was the largest US Navy Supply Depot in the south of England during the Second World War, with some later retained for use by a UK MOD Naval Store. During the Second World War one Royal Navy warship, the destroyer HMS Duckworth was named after the Admiral. In England, The Duckworth House is in Kent St, Portsmouth PO1 to be found not far from the Portsmouth Historic Dockyard complex. The memorial to Admiral John Thomas Duckworth in the south transept of St Margaret's Church, Topsham, was erected by his wife, Susannah née Buller, daughter of William Buller, Bishop of Exeter. The memorial describes him as Admiral of the White Squadron of his Majesty's Fleet and depicts a naval scene which, by comparison with artworks on the same theme, represents his famous passage through the Dardanelles in 1807. The sculptor, Sir Francis Chantrey (1781 – 1841), is regarded as the foremost portrait sculptor of his generation. The adjacent memorial, also by Chantrey, is to the Admiral's son Colonel George Duckworth who died in action at Albuera in 1811. It depicts a soldier and an angel. Duckworth Street in St. John's, Newfoundland, Canada is named in his honour. ==Notes==