14 Facts About Philemon Pownoll

Philemon Pownoll joined the British navy in the last year of the War of the Austrian Succession.

Philemon Pownoll married and settled on his estate, but despite his riches, chose to return to active service on the outbreak of the American War of Independence.

Philemon Pownoll took part in a hard-fought action against a French privateer in 1779, and received a musket ball to the chest, which remained with him for the rest of his life.

Philemon Pownoll again engaged a heavily armed privateer the following year, and this time was killed by a cannonball in the heat of the action, which was brought to a successful conclusion by his first lieutenant.

Philemon Pownoll's death was marked with tributes from the leading naval figures of his age, including Admiral John Jervis and Edward Pellew.

Israel Philemon Pownoll served as master shipwright of the dockyard at Plymouth between 1762 and 1765, and of Chatham from 1775 until his death.

Philemon Pownoll owned property in the Shadwell and Clerkenwell areas of London, suggesting that the family descended from the Independent seamen and merchants who were numerous in the Shadwell and Wapping area at the time, and had connections with New England.

Coincidentally Sawyer and Philemon Pownoll had been courting two sisters, the daughters of a Lisbon merchant, but had been rejected for their lack of funds.

Philemon Pownoll used his money to buy an estate at Sharpham in the parish of Ashprington in Devon, where he built a large mansion house, surviving today, designed by Robert Taylor, with gardens designed by Capability Brown.

Possibly out of consideration to his debt to the admiral, Philemon Pownoll agreed to take him on.

Philemon Pownoll reassured him that it was just one of Pellew's antics, and that 'should [he] fall, he would only go under the ship's hull and come up on the other side.

Philemon Pownoll was hit in the chest by a musket ball, which remained lodged there for the remainder of his life.

Philemon Pownoll's death was widely mourned, Pellew writing in his report to the Admiralty that: 'The loss of Captain Philemon Pownoll will be severely felt.

Edward Osler wrote in 1835 that 'St Vincent and Philemon Pownoll who were brought up under Boscawen, and received their Lieutenant's commission from him, contributed materially to form a Nelson or an Exmouth; each the founder of a school of officers, whose model is the character of their chief, and their example his successes.