Nelson & His World

I have been looking into the career of Admiral Sir William Essington who led the second division at the Battle of Copenhagen in 1807.

In doing so I have uncovered a strange controversy.

It seems that in 1794 when captain of the Aurora he sent a press gang on board the merchant ship Sarah and Elizabeth. The S & E crew resisted the press gang and in the ensuing melee one of the S & E's crew was shot dead. Essington claimed that the actions of the S & E crew were tantamount to piracy and his men were fully justified in firing on them.

Nevertheless Essington was indicted on a charge of murder!

But before steps could be taken for conviction the Admiralty promoted Essington and despatched him to the East Indies where he remained for many years. By the time he returned to Europe the intended conviction seems to have been abandoned.

Essington's promotions continued and by 1810 he was a Rear Admiral.

Out of the blue it was reported in June 1810 that Essington would stand trial at the next Admiralty session for the alleged 1794 murder.

I can find no record that this trial ever took place. But if it did he must have been found Not Guilty since his promotions continued, including a knighthood, and he died in 1816 as a Vice-Admiral of the White.

What a strange set of circumstances!

Another "colourful" life to add to the many from this era!!

MB

Would anyone have any information about the life and career of Admiral Sir William Essington? My great great grandfather (Henry Essington Penfold) is believed to have been named after him.

Gerry

I just saw your post pop up.

I was doing a bit of work on Admiral Essington about a year ago and by coincidence was just looking at it again in the last couple of weeks.

In the meantime I had found that a really fine portrait of Essington had sold at Christie's back in 2004.



This page on Christie's website shows the portrait and some biographical info.

http://www.christies.com/LotFinder/lot_ ... ID=4233626

As you will see - his real claim to fame was captaining HMS Triumph at the Battle of Camperdown for which he was awarded the Naval Gold Medal.

My understanding is that he died childless. I have a copy of his will here but the copy is very poor and consequently very hard to read. But I seem to recall that the beneficiaries were firstly his wife but also a cousin. As soon as time allows I will pore over the will again and see if I can make more sense of it.

I know that his father had also been in the navy - reaching the rank of Lieutenant.

After Admiral Essington's death his wife ended up living in a suburb of Birmingham. A street was named after her - Essington Street - which disappeared in the 1960's/70's redevelopments. But I believe that the name has been revived so there is again an Essington Street - just off Broad Street.

Essington had died in London and there was a memorial to him in Wandsworth Parish Church - possibly it is still there.

That's a bit to be going on with.

Meanwhile - what were the dates of your gggrandfather?

Admiral Essington died in 1816 so would be interesting to see how the dates might tie in.

MB

Mark

Many thanks for your reply. I tried posting a detailed response to you on Sunday night and again on Monday night, but both were lost when sent. If this brief message gets through I will respond once more.

Gerry

Gerry:

I'm sorry you had trouble posting. It's happened to me a couple of times as well. Now, if I know my post will be a longish one, I type it in a Word document then copy and paste. Maybe one of the techno-whizzes can explain what might be going wrong.

Anna - Thanks. I tried to post my reply last night but it failed again.

Mark - If you are happy to give me your email address I will send my reply to you.

Gerry

Gerry

Sorry you have had so much trouble - something very strange happening there.

I'll send you my email address through the Personal Mail system on this forum.

Not trying to hide it - but it's one less chance for the spammers to get hold of it.

I'll do it straight away - so next time you log on you should see "1 new message" at the top of the page and you can click on that link.

Thanks

Mark

Mark

Have just sent you a private email. Hope it works!

Gerry

Gerry

This is turning into a bit of a nightmare - unfortunately I haven't received anything from you via the PM system.

It seems too much of a coincidence that your forum posts didn't work - and now this!

Obviously I would very much like to see what you have re Admiral Essington and the only thing I can suggest is to use "normal" email. Hopefully you received my email address which I sent yesterday. I have also made it available on my profile which it wasn't before. Click on Members and I am towards the bottom of the first page.

I'll keep my fingers firmly crossed.

MB

Gerry, I'm so sorry you're having all this trouble. Don't give up on us!

You can always post a comment by sending a normal email to nelsonATnelsonandhisworld.co.uk substituting the @ symbol for AT. This will come to my email inbox and I can copy and paste it onto the website noting that it's come from you.

But we must sort out your access problem. Tony? Any ideas?

Sorry, no. What actually happens? - Nothing, or some sort of error message?

All of Gerry's other posts are working.

Therefore it must be something specific to this post, e.g. :

1. The size. Is there any restriction on number of characters etc. that can be posted? There is on some forums. If it is too big for the database field could be the system will just dump it.

2. The content. i.e. some code e.g. HTML or somesuch that it doesn't like.

Gerry regarding the PM you sent me - does it show in your Outbox or Sent Messages?

MB

(Good news - I received this information from Gerry through the normal email channels. I will add a few more comments of my own in a subsequent post. Also at the bottom is another portrait of Essington which comes from a composite of the Camperdown captains)

Yes, Admiral Essington died childless. He married Mary Bowlker on 6 April 1799 at the Church of St Marylebone. He would have been about 46 years of age.

Admiral Essington died 12 July 1816, aged 63, at 24 Nottingham Place, St Marylebone and was buried in a vault within the Church of All Saints, Wandsworth. His widow, Mary Essington, died 27 November 1827 at Ladywood House, Birmingham.

Admiral Essington seemed determined to perpetuate his surname. Under the terms of his will, he left his wife a life interest in his estate. Upon the death of Mary Essington and after payment of various bequests, the residue of the estate was to pass to a cousin William Webb Ward, but only if Ward changed his name to Essington by Act of Parliament or by Royal Licence. If Ward neglected or refused to take and use the name of Essington, the residue of the estate was to pass to another cousin William Rand Hughes, but only if Hughes formally changed his name to Essington. If Hughes neglected or refused to take and use the name of Essington, the residue of the estate was to pass to yet another cousin William Lardner.

William Webb Ward changed his name to William Webb Essington by Royal Licence in January 1828, less than two months after the death of Mary Essington and so came into the inheritance.

My gt gt grandfather, Henry Essington Penfold, was born in St Marylebone (same parish in which the Essington family lived) on 9 January 1817, nearly six months after the death of Admiral Essington. Henry Essington Penfold was the fourth son (there were seven children) of Henry Penfold, a baker, and Mary Ann Penfold (nee Boyce). None of the other children were named Essington.

In August 1818 Mary Penfold applied for poor relief from Clerkenwell Parish. She told the Clerkenwell magistrate that her husband had 'left her about a week to seek for employment in the country'. She described the unnamed Henry Essington Penfold as a 'male infant, not christened'. The child was baptised Henry Essington on 3 March 1819 at the Church of St James, Clerkenwell Green. By that time the family had been taken into Clerkenwell Workhouse.

The Penfold family seemed to have undergone a change of fortune because, by November 1820, the family was residing in Great Ormond Yard, Holborn and Henry Penfold subsequently changed his occupation from baker to paper bag maker and printer. Henry Essington Penfold eventually became the proprietor of a North London weekly newspaper (North London News). His son George, my gt grandfather, published other London weekly newspapers.

The belief is that Mary Essington might have provided some material or financial assistance to the Penfold family and in acknowledgement the latest child was baptised Henry Essington in memory of the late Admiral. Or perhaps the assistance was conditional on the child’s name (rather like the conditions in Admiral Essington's will). To try to prove the connection I checked the Penfold newspapers 100 years after the Battle of Camperdown and 100 years after the death of Admiral Essington but there was nothing to suggest a Penfold/Essington connection. I wondered if Henry Penfold had sailed on a ship commanded by William Essington and therefore I checked the surviving muster books for the Goliath 1801-1803, Sans Pareil 1801-1802 and Minotaur 1806-1807. There were no Penfold entries. Also I wondered whether Henry and/or Mary Ann Penfold could have been household servants of the Essington family, but insufficient records survive.

I was hoping that someone might have some information about Admiral Essington's life/career in case it gave me a clue.

Gerry

Definitely the sort of intriguing mystery that I love. And you have obviously done a great deal of research to get to this position.

I CAN be a bit of a sceptic in such matters. But such an unusual name and living in such close proximity makes me think that there could definitely be a connection.

Unfortunately I can't throw any further light than you have already done.

Just to add a bit of factual information I actually came to this subject through some research I was doing on Ladywood House - where as you quite rightly say, Lady Essington lived, and died in 1827.

I'm not sure exactly what brought her to Birmingham - but I seem to recall that one of the wills mentions a couple of Birmingham suburbs so I surmised that she had relatives living somewhere in the vicinity.

I have a couple of pictures of Ladywood House. Also newspaper adverts when Lady Essington's possessions were sold after her death.

I have never discovered exactly where her remains are located. She was first buried in the crypt of Christ Church which used to stand at one end of New Street. But that church was demolished in the late 1800's. Any remains in the crypt that were not otherwise claimed were moved to Warstone Lane cemetery. It was reported in the local newspapers how the remains were removed in the middle of the night so that the people of Birmingham were not distressed by a procession of hearses. I believe that she probably went into one of the catacombs at the cemetery but I have never found actual proof of that. There used to be a church adjacent to the cemetery and I believe there was a commemorative plaque to her in there - but that church is also now long gone.

Sorry - that's all I have for now.

MB

Gerry

At the bottom of this post is another small piece for the jigsaw.

It comes from the Morning Chronicle in April 1820.

This is not a particularly sizeable donation but it does show that Lady Essington had sympathies towards people in impoverished circumstances.

I have found another in 1822 (sorry can't reproduce here) where she was making a second donation of £2 to a charity to aid "the distressed peasantry".

So it is conceivable that she MIGHT have given some direct help to the Penfold family which resulted in the child being christened with her name.

People will be thinking I have "changed my medication" as I am usually looking for reasons why things didn't happen rather than why they did. But I think the facts here do at least point in a certain direction.

One thing I forgot to mention before is that Lady Essington appears to have moved to Birmingham/Ladywood House in 1824.

And one question. You say that none of the other children had the name Essington. I just wondered if they had different second Christian names - or none?