John Talbot (Royal Navy officer)

Talbot was born in approximately 1769, the son of Richard and Margaret Talbot, of Malahide near Dublin. His mother became Baroness Talbot de Malahide in 1831, the title passing to his elder brothers Richard and subsequently James. A younger brother was Thomas Talbot, a Canadian politician of the early nineteenth century.[1]

Talbot entered the Navy in 1784, joining Horatio Nelson's ship HMS Boreas in the West Indies. In the following years he moved to HMS Barfleur and HMS Victory at Portsmouth and he was promoted lieutenant in 1790 while aboard HMS Triton. At the outbreak of the French Revolutionary Wars in 1793, Talbot was attached to HMS Windsor Castle under Samuel Hood in the Mediterranean. In the next two years, he moved between HMS Alcide and HMS Astraea and aboard the latter he was involved in the capture of the frigate Gloire in April 1796.[1] Talbot sailed the captured Gloire to Britain, where he was promoted to commander and took over the sloop HMS Helena.

Giovanni Luzzo, The Battle of Pirano

In August Talbot was promoted to post captain in the sixth rate HMS Eurydice in which he remained for four years in the West Indies and English Channel. During this period he captured numerous enemy merchant ships. Eurydice was present at the Saint Marcou Islands for the Battle of the Îles Saint-Marcouf in 1798, although the lack of wind prevented her from engaging the French attackers.[1]

On 10 November 1799 near Beachy Head she surprised a schooner L'Hirondelle from Calais (14 guns) Captain Pierre Merie Dugerdin attacking a British brig the Diana of Sunderland which was putting up fierce resistance. Eurydice went in pursuit of the Frenchman and along the way met up with HMS Snake, Captain Lewis after a short engagement the Snake succeeded in capturing the schooner.[2][3]

In 1801 Talbot transferred to HMS Glenmore in Ireland.[1]

At the resumption of the conflict following the Peace of Amiens in 1804, Talbot took over HMS Leander on the Halifax Station. In February 1805 Leander discovered the French frigate Ville de Milan and the British HMS Cleopatra, which the French ship had captured the day before. Both ships were badly damaged and as a result Leander was able to outrun them and capture them without a fight. For this success, Talbot was moved to the ship of the line HMS Centaur and then HMS Thunderer in which he participated in the Dardanelles Operation under John Thomas Duckworth.[1]

In 1809, Talbot took command of HMS Victorious, in which he remained for the rest of his career. In February 1812, Victorious was dispatched to the Adriatic Sea, to intercept the French ship of the line Rivoli recently constructed at Venice. Talbot discovered the French ship with a small escort on her maiden voyage on 22 February and immediately engaged. The ensuing five-hour duel caused heavy casualties on both ships, including Talbot who was badly wounded in the head by a large splinter. When Rivoli surrendered, she was found to have 400 of her crew, approximately half, killed or wounded. Both battered ships were returned to Britain, where they were repaired and Rivoli rejoined the Royal Navy.[1]

Talbot never again took an active post in the Navy either at sea or on shore. In 1812 he had inherited Delvins plantation, Montserrat, West Indies (with 112 enslaved persons) from his great-uncle John Nugent, Lt.Governor of Tortola. He retired to his estate at Rhode Hill near Lyme Regis in Dorset and married Maria Julia Everard, daughter of James Everard Arundell, 9th Baron Arundell of Wardour, with whom he had two sons and five daughters. In 1815 he was made a Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath and in 1819 was promoted to rear-admiral. In 1836 he received £1599 13s 1d compensation for the 100 enslaved at Delvins who had been freed by the Abolition of Slavery in 1834. For the next thirty years, Talbot lived as a country gentleman, steadily advancing in rank until at his death in 1851 he was a full admiral and a Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath.[1]

• O'Byrne, William Richard (1849). "Talbot, John" . A Naval Biographical Dictionary . John Murray – via Wikisource.

• "Talbot, John (1769?-1851)" . Dictionary of National Biography. London: Smith, Elder & Co. 1885–1900.