Henry Smith (Royal Navy officer)

Sir Henry Smith
Born	1803
Died	18 January 1887(1887-01-18) (aged 83–84)
Allegiance	United Kingdom
Service/branch	Royal Navy
Rank	Admiral
Commands held	HMS Arachne HMS Magnificent HMS Volage HMS Druid HMS Ganges HMS Neptune HMS Prince Regent
Battles/wars	Aden Expedition First Opium War Battle of Kowloon Battle of Chuenpi Battle of the Barrier Second Battle of Chuenpi Battle of the Bogue Battle of Canton Battle of Amoy Crimean War Åland War
Awards	Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath China War Medal Baltic Medal

Admiral Sir Henry Smith KCB (1803 – 18 January 1887) was a British officer in the Royal Navy. He commanded the Aden Expedition in 1839 which took Aden as the first colonial acquisition of the reign of Queen Victoria. For this service he was appointed a Companion of the Order of the Bath in 1840. Smith played an important role in a number of battles at the beginning of the First Opium War, commanding at the battles of Kowloon, Chuenpi and the Barrier. He also participated in later battles that saw Canton and Amoy taken by the British. He went on to command ships in the Mediterranean and then in the Baltic Sea during the Crimean War. Smith never served at sea again after obtaining flag rank in 1855 but became superintendent of the Royal Hospital Haslar and the Royal Clarence Yard. He was appointed a Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath in 1873, the same year he retired from the navy as an admiral.

Early life[]

Henry Smith was born around 1803; little else is known about his upbringing until he joined the Royal Navy.^[1][2]

Naval career[]

Early career[]

Smith joined the Royal Navy in 1814.^[1] He was promoted to lieutenant on 19 July 1821 and was appointed on 25 April 1823 to serve as such on the ship of the line HMS Genoa on the Lisbon Station.^[3][4] Smith left Genoa midway through 1825 and some time soon afterwards joined the brig-sloop HMS Pelican in the eastern Mediterranean Sea.^[3][5] Pelican served on anti-piracy duties, taking the schooner Aphrodite on 3 January 1827; on 2 March another Turkish ship was investigated by Pelican and through her obstinacy in refusing to be searched by Pelican was deemed to also be a pirate.^[5] Smith was one of a number of men sent across to the ship to destroy it, killing two crew members and wounding four others; Smith distinguished himself in the fight and at the same time was badly injured.^[5]

He was next appointed first lieutenant of the brig-sloop on 7 May.^[3] In Fairy Smith sailed for the West Indies where on 3 February 1828 he was promoted to commander and given command of the brig-sloop .^[3] On 14 April Smith transferred to command another brig-sloop, HMS Arachne.^[4] He was then made acting-captain of the receiving ship HMS Magnificent at Jamaica on 8 September 1829 and officially promoted to post captain in 1831 with seniority from the beginning of his tenure as acting-captain.^[3][4] While commanding Magnificent Smith was the senior officer at Port Royal and received the thanks of the mercantile community there for his assistance in Jamaica's commercial interests.^[6]

Aden[]

The capture of Aden

On 27 November 1837 Smith was sent to the East Indies Station in command of the frigate HMS Volage.^[3] In January 1838 the Sultanate of Lahej agreed to transfer a number of its possessions, including the town of Aden to Britain but later decided against this and opened fire on the sloop-of-war HCS Coote.^[7] Smith was given command of an expedition, comprising Volage, the brig HMS Cruizer, Coote, the schooner HCS Mahé, and three transports, to secure Aden.^[3] Smith and his small expedition arrived at Aden on 16 January 1839 and in the morning of 18 January Volage, Cruizer, and Mahé sailed to the front of the town from where they were fired upon.^[8]

At 9.30 a.m. the rest of the expedition had arrived and the warships sailed in close to Aden's batteries to bombard them.^[8] By 11 a.m. the gunnery of the ships had demolished Aden's lower batteries and destroyed a large tower, while landing parties ordered by Smith had cleared out the remaining enemy musket men in the rubble.^[8] At this point Smith ordered the main two landings of troops to take place, which were completed successfully with two naval casualties and sixteen from the army, with the defending garrison of 1000 men suffering around fifty casualties.^[9] Aden was later purchased by the East India Company and used as a coalling station.^[3][9] For his capturing of Aden Smith was nominated a Companion of the Order of the Bath on 13 August and received the thanks of the Governor General of India.^{[Note 1][3][11]}

China[]

The Battle of Chuenpi

Volage and Smith subsequently sailed for China, arriving at Macao on 30 August and then immediately sailing for the recently occupied Hong Kong.^[12] On 4 September the Chinese at Kowloon refused to continue supplying provisions to the British contingent there, moving Smith to use his ship's boats and those of the East Indiaman Cambridge to force away a Chinese squadron of war junks and reopen a passage for supplies; after a number of skirmishes between ships' boats and the junks the Chinese retired from their positions and supply was opened again, ending the Battle of Kowloon.^[12] Smith had to be persuaded not to return to and destroy the junks and the battery protecting them with Volage, with a frigate action being deemed less politically acceptable than a boat action.^[13] Relations with the Chinese continued to sour and on 11 September Smith was ordered by Captain Charles Elliot to blockade Canton in order to stop British trade with the Chinese while they refused to accept ships with opium on board.^[12] On 3 November a Chinese fleet of twenty-nine junks set out to protect British ships not carrying opium that were attempting to bypass the blockade and enter Canton; Volage and the sloop-of-war HMS Hyacinth then began the Battle of Chuenpi by opening fire on the junks, Smith having decided that the movements of the junks were provocative, destroying three of them before a ceasefire was brokered and the Chinese retired.^{[Note 2][15][16]}

On 30 June 1840 Smith was given command of a different frigate, HMS Druid in which he continued to blockade the Chinese, taking eight merchant ships as prize by 10 July as senior naval officer on the south of the Chinese coast.^[3][17][18] On 6 August the missionary Vincent John Stanton was captured by the Chinese while swimming in Casilha Bay near Macao and Smith took his small squadron of ships to avenge the attack.^[19] This force consisted of Druid, the sloops-of-war HMS Larne and Hyacinth, and two smaller vessels.^[3] On 19 August Smith with 120 Royal Marines, 80 seamen, and 180 local volunteers, successfully fought the Battle of the Barrier in which he destroyed the works and barracks that the Chinese had built close to the British city of Macao, including destroying seventeen guns and two junks for only four men wounded.^[3][19] By 7 p.m. the entire force had reembarked on the ships and left the area ablaze, with so many cannon balls having been fired by the ships that they picked up their used shot to recycle it before leaving.^[20] It was said of Smith's actions at the battle that 'seldom has a more signal service been rendered in so short a space of time'.^[21] Druid continued after this to protect British trade and hunt down pirates, at one point having several men of a boarding party killed when the junk they were investigating blew up.^[22]

On 8 January 1841 Smith commanded Druid in a force under Commdore Gordon Bremer at Tycocktow, on the opposite peninsula to Chuenpi which was simultaneously attacked.^[23] Here the force fought the Second Battle of Chuenpi where they attacked the fort at Tycocktow by anchoring in succession around 200 yards from it and silencing the fort's guns within a few minutes.^[24] The firing created a breach in the fort which was attacked by boats manned by the crews of the ships and quickly taken.^[25] Twenty-five cannons were destroyed and the casualties of the Chinese were suggested to be 'very severe'.^[25] Smith was praised by Commodore Bremer for his conduct during the attack.^[25]

While these attacks had secured an opening for the British into Canton the city itself was still not open to them and in February a larger attack was planned to take it; Smith and Druid assisted in the preparations for the Battle of the Bogue by convoying the force's transports from Hong Kong.^[26] Druid arrived off Canton to join with the main force of Commodore Bremer on 24 February after the initial stages of the battle had already taken place to the west of Canton.^[26] At 11 a.m. on 25 February Smith took Druid in with a portion of Commodore Bremer's force to attack the Chinese batteries on the south, south-west, and north-west of the island of Wangtong, with simultaneous concentration on the forts still active on the west bank of the river.^[27] The fire of the ships destroyed the batteries on Wangtong within the hour, allowing landing parties to attack and secure the location.^[27] Only the marines of Druid played a further part in the battle with Smith otherwise not employed; his service up to this point was again praised in the dispatches of his commanders.^[28][29]

In Druid Smith subsequently fought at the Battle of Canton and Battle of Amoy, in which encounters his conduct was again frequently praised by his commanders.^[3] At the latter battle on 25 August Smith commanded the port division of the fleet which was charged with engaging the Chinese batteries at the entrance to the harbour in order that the rest of the attack could go ahead securely.^[30][31] Smith stayed at Amoy after the battle to garrison it in September.^[32] There he repulsed threats of invasion from a nearby Chinese provincial governor, which included deliberating over the apparent capture of a native bride by British forces midway through her marriage and stopping attacks on the population of Amoy by other Chinese forces.^{[33][34][35][36]} He continued on the China Station in Druid until 1843 and was presented with gifts from the British merchant community in China for his 'valuable services as senior officer during a period of unexampled danger and difficulty'.^[6]

Mediterranean[]

On 1 March 1848 Smith was given command of the ship of the line HMS Ganges at Sheerness in which he served in the Mediterranean for four years.^[3][6] While some time was spent at Portsmouth and Gibraltar much of Smith's service in the Mediterranean was spent sailing from Malta and cruising the nearby coasts.^[37]

Baltic[]

Smith briefly commanded the ship of the line HMS Neptune as guard ship at Portsmouth from 17 February 1854 to 7 March before being given command of the ship of the line HMS Prince Regent on 7 July.^[38][39] Early in the year Prince Regent and Smith sailed for the Baltic to form part of the Royal Navy force fighting in the Crimean War.^[1][39] By 13 June 1854 Prince Regent was a part of the combined Franco-British fleet under Admiral Charles Napier fighting the Åland War but did not play a particularly active role in the campaign.^[40] Smith's part in the war was only brief, as Prince Regent was paid off at Portsmouth on 16 December.^[39]

Later service[]

Smith never served at sea again but later became superintendent of the Royal Hospital Haslar and the Royal Clarence Yard.^[6] Smith was promoted to rear-admiral on 3 July 1855 and vice-admiral on 12 April 1862.^[41][6] On 30 November 1865 he was given one of only two flag officer's good service pensions, worth £150 a year.^[41][6][42] Smith retired from the navy in 1873 having been promoted to admiral on 12 September 1865.^[1][6][41] On 24 May 1873 he was nominated a Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath, thus becoming Sir Henry Smith.^[43]

Death[]

Smith died on 18 January 1887 at his home in Florence, where he had moved to live in his later years, at the age of 84.^[6]

Family[]

Smith married Anna, the eldest daughter of Sylvester Costigin of Dublin, on 18 September 1844 in Berne, Switzerland at the British Embassy.^[3][44]

Notes and citations[]

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