1. Admiral Sir Edmund Nagle, KCB was an Irish officer in Royal Navy during the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries who is best known for his capture of the French frigate Revolutionnaire at the action of 21 October 1794 and his close association with George IV as a courtier from 1820 to his own death.
Edmund Nagle served as Commander-in-Chief at Leith, and on the Coast of Scotland and Commander-in-Chief on the Guernsey Station.
Edmund Nagle was born in 1757 at Bloomfield, County Cork in the Kingdom of Ireland.
In 1770, Nagle entered the Royal Navy in the frigate Juno and was present at the British occupation of the Falkland Islands the following year.
Edmund Nagle served in the American Revolutionary War without seeing extensive action, on Greenwich, Syren, Polecat, and Warwick until he was captured in 1782 when commanding the small brig Racoon.
Edmund Nagle returned to active service in 1793 at the outbreak of the French Revolutionary Wars and commanded first Active and then Artois with a detached squadron of frigates from the Channel Fleet commanded by Commodore Sir Edward Pellew.
The squadron gave chase, Edmund Nagle catching the larger French ship and fighting her until support arrived.
Revolutionnaire surrendered, and in 1794 Edmund Nagle was made a Knight Bachelor for his service in capturing her.
Edmund Nagle remained in command of Artois until 1797, when the frigate was wrecked on the French coast in pursuit of an enemy ship.
In 1798, Edmund Nagle married a wealthy widow, Mary Blackman formerly the wife of John Lucie Blackman, father of Sir George Harnage, 1st Baronet of the Harnage baronets, and effectively retired from the sea.
Edmund Nagle had minor commands on board Majestic and Juste and in 1803 took command of the Sea Fencibles, a coastal fencible force, based at Shoreham-by-Sea.
Edmund Nagle, who was described by Burke as having "a spirited and pleasing simplicity in his manner", was often the butt of the prince's jokes, but the relationship bore dividends as Edmund Nagle was promoted rapidly, becoming a rear-admiral in 1805 and a vice-admiral in 1810 with spells of service at Guernsey and Leith.
In 1813, after a very brief tenure as absentee Governor of Newfoundland, Edmund Nagle was made an official aide-de-camp to the Prince.
Edmund Nagle became a Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath in 1815 and a full admiral in 1819.
In 1820, when Prince George became King George IV, Edmund Nagle was appointed Groom of the Bedchamber, and moved into the King's Royal residences, although maintaining an estate at East Molesey in Surrey.
Edmund Nagle remained close to the King until his death at his private estate, just three months before the King died.