John Stockham

Stockham was born in July 1765 to a middle class Devon family, and was baptised in Exeter on 24 July. The date he joined the navy is not known and neither is the ship he joined, but it is likely that he was at sea before the end of the American War of Independence and may have seen action there, although this can not be proven. He was promoted to lieutenant on 29 April 1797 when he was 32, a full fourteen years after the normal age for this promotion.[1] This was likely the result of a failure to gain interest or sponsorship from an admiral, politician or other person of influence.[1] Early in 1801, while serving as lieutenant aboard HMS San Josef, Stockham came to the attention of Horatio Nelson, who took Stockham with him when he transferred to HMS Elephant, prior to the Battle of Copenhagen.[1]

The next time Stockham appears in the historical record is after the Peace of Amiens, where he was first lieutenant of HMS Thunderer. Thunderer had participated in the Battle of Cape Finisterre in July 1805 under her captain, William Lechmere, and Lechmere had then become embroiled in the controversy surrounding Sir Robert Calder's conduct in the action. When Calder insisted on a court martial, he requested Lechmere, along with William Brown of HMS Ajax and Philip Durham of HMS Defiance to come back to London and testify in his defence. Durham refused but Brown and Lechmere did not, leaving their first lieutenants in charge of their ships.

Following the action, Stockham was granted a gold medal and sword from the Lloyd's Patriotic Fund, and was promoted to Post Captain on Christmas Day of that year. Stockham, like many other officers who served in the battle, was unable to find a ship for future service. He retired to Exeter a few years later, where he lived peacefully until his death in 1814. He was buried in a family plot in St Sidwell's Church, but German bombing during the Blitz destroyed his grave. Exactly the same raid that destroyed Stockham's tombstone also destroyed the grave, in a different Exeter churchyard, of Robert Benjamin Young, the captain of HMS Entreprenante, one of the small ships that accompanied the fleet at Trafalgar,.

• Hore, Peter (2015). Nelson's Band of Brothers: Lives and Memorials. Barnsley.: Seaforth Publishing. ISBN 9781848327795.

• The Trafalgar Captains, Colin White and the 1805 Club, Chatham Publishing, London, 2005, ISBN 1-86176-247-X

• John Stockham bio
• Animation of the Battle of Trafalgar