1. Admiral Sir William Cornwallis, was a Royal Navy officer.
24 Facts About William Cornwallis
1. 2.
William Cornwallis was the brother of Charles Cornwallis, 1st Marquess Cornwallis, British commander at the siege of Yorktown.
3.
William Cornwallis is depicted in the Horatio Hornblower novel, Hornblower and the Hotspur.
4.
William Cornwallis's father was Charles, the fifth baron and first earl Cornwallis, and his mother was Elizabeth, daughter of Viscount Charles Townshend.
5.
When Kingston returned to England in 1759, William Cornwallis was taken aboard the 60-gun Dunkirk by Captain Robert Digby.
6.
William Cornwallis remained in Dunkirk when she was assigned to the Mediterranean fleet then commanded by Admiral Charles Saunders.
7.
William Cornwallis continued in her into the peace with France after the Treaty of Paris had ended the war in 1763.
8.
William Cornwallis commanded her until she was paid off and the ship was sold in 1766.
9.
William Cornwallis Lion was one of those ships and when he became separated from the British fleet she was forced to break away and make a run for Jamaica rather than risk capture.
10.
William Cornwallis treated Prince William Henry, later William IV, when he was stationed in the West Indies.
11.
The British squadron under William Cornwallis had lost 12 killed including Captain Glover of the Janus.
12.
William Cornwallis was sent home under Rear-Admiral Thomas Graves with the convoy that included the captured French flagship Ville de Paris.
13.
William Cornwallis however remained employed in command of the royal yacht until 1787.
14.
William Cornwallis was succeeded in command of the East Indies Station by Commodore Peter Rainier.
15.
The French admiral made the assumption that William Cornwallis must have sighted assistance beyond his own field of vision and had turned to engage the enemy knowing that a superior force was nearby to come to their relief.
16.
The reputation of William Cornwallis was amplified and the praise given him was no doubt the greater because he was personally very popular with officers and men.
17.
In 1796 William Cornwallis incurred a court-martial on the charge of refusing to obey an order from the Admiralty.
18.
William Cornwallis was promoted Admiral of the Blue squadron on 14 February 1799, and held the Channel Command for a short interval when Admiral Jervis fell ill in 1801.
19.
William Cornwallis took command once more when Jervis stood down as commander and became first Lord of the Admiralty between 1801 and 1804.
20.
In 1796, William Cornwallis was promoted to Rear-Admiral of Great Britain, the title becoming Rear-Admiral of the United Kingdom after the Act of Union came into force in 1801, and then in 1814 he was promoted to Vice-Admiral of the United Kingdom.
21.
The various nicknames of William Cornwallis seem to show that he was regarded with more of affection than reverence.
22.
William Cornwallis was made a Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath in 1815.
23.
William Cornwallis served as MP for Portsmouth from 1782 to 1790.
24.
William Cornwallis was joined by his close friend and fellow naval officer Captain John Whitby and his wife Mary Anna Theresa Whitby.