Hugh Talbot Burgoyne VC (1833 - 1870)

Born 19 Jul 1833 in Dublin, Dublin, Ireland

Ancestors

Died 7 Sep 1870 at age 37 in Cape Finisterre

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Biography

Hugh Talbot Burgoyne VC is Notable.

Hugh Talbot Burgoyne VC was awarded the Victoria Cross.

Hugh Talbot Burgoyne VC was awarded the Chevaliers de la Légion d'honneur.

Hugh Talbot Burgoyne VC was awarded the Order of the Medjidie Fifth Class.

Captain Hugh Talbot Burgoyne VC was drowned at sea during during a storm.

Note

Note: Wikipedia:Hugh_Talbot_Burgoyne

V.C. (Crimea) Drowned at Sea, ship HMS Captain sank in English Channel. On 29 May 1855 in the Sea of Azov, Crimea, Lieutenant Burgoyne of HMS Swallow, with a Lieutenant (BUCKLEY, C.W.) from HMS Miranda and a gunner (ROBARTS, J.) from HMS Ardent,volunteered to land at a beach where the Russian army were in strength. They were out of covering gunshot range of the ships offshore and met considerable enemy opposition, but managed to set fire to corn stores and ammunition dumps and destroy enemy equipment before embarking again.

Note: from DNB:

Burgoyne, Hugh Talbot (1833?1870), naval officer, only son of Field Marshal Sir John Fox Burgoyne (1782?1871) and his wife, Charlotte (d. 1871), daughter of Hugh Rose of Holme, Inverness-shire, was born in Dublin in 1833. He entered the navy in 1847, was promoted lieutenant on 11 January 1854 and on 20 March was appointed to the Boscawen, in which he served for a few months in the Baltic. When the Boscawen returned to England, Burgoyne was appointed on 16 September to the Swallow, in which he went to the Mediterranean. The Swallow was attached to the fleet before Sevastopol, and on 29 May 1855, after Genichersk had been shelled, Burgoyne volunteered to land, with Lieutenant Cecil Buckley and a companion named Roberts, and burn the Russian stores. This was a dangerous service, and was rewarded with the Victoria Cross when it was instituted in the following year. Burgoyne was then appointed to the command of the dispatch gunboat Wrangler, in which he continued actively employed for the rest of the war.

Burgoyne was made commander on 10 May 1856, and on 16 July 1857 was appointed to the Ganges, bearing the flag of Rear-Admiral Baynes in the Pacific. He continued in the Ganges until she was paid off, then was promoted captain on 15 May 1861. In 1863 he accompanied Captain Sherard Osborn to China, as second in command of the Anglo-Chinese flotilla. When Osborn resigned the appointment on a disagreement with the Chinese government, the post (with an unusually liberal pay) was immediately offered to Burgoyne, who, however, declined it, being no more disposed than Osborn to submit himself to the Chinese authorities. As the junior officers followed his example, the flotilla was broken up, and Burgoyne returned to England.

In 1864 Burgoyne married Evelyn Laura, daughter of Admiral Sir Baldwin Wake Walker: she survived her husband. Burgoyne was appointed on 27 September 1865 to command the Wivern, a small turret ship, in which he continued for the next two years, when he was appointed (22 October 1867) to the frigate Constance on the North American station.

Towards the close of 1868 the Constance was paid off, and Burgoyne was appointed to superintend the building, fitting out, and first commission of the Captain, the controversial low-freeboard, full-rigged turret ship designed by Captain Cowper Phipps Coles. In July 1870 she had a first cruise in the channel and the Bay of Biscay; she appeared to be an easy and comfortable sea-boat, and was spoken of as the steadiest platform for guns ever afloat. Burgoyne reported officially that the ship had ?proved herself a most efficient vessel both under sail and steam, as well as easy and comfortable?. In August she accompanied the Channel Fleet to Gibraltar.

On 6 September the fleet, on its return voyage, was off Cape Finisterre; Sir Alexander Milne, the commander-in-chief, visited the ship and was struck by her extreme lowness in the water, such that with a light breeze the water was washing over the lee side of the deck and striking the after turret to a depth of about 18 inches to 2 feet. He said to Captain Coles, who had come in a private capacity, ?I cannot reconcile myself to this state of things so very unusual in all my experience?.Still there was no thought of danger, and Sir Alexander went back to his ship puzzled rather than alarmed. That evening the wind rose. The ships were screened from each other's sight, but there had been plenty of warning, and the storm was of no alarming strength. About twenty minutes past midnight a fresh squall struck the ships; the Captain immediately heeled over, had no power of recovery, turned completely over bottom upwards, and sank. Most of her officers and men were below, and went down with her; of those who were on deck only eighteen managed to scramble into the launch, which had been thrown out when the ship was on the point of capsizing, and were saved. Burgoyne, with some few men, managed to climb onto the bottom of the ship's pinnace; and as the launch drifted near, the men jumped and were picked up. Whether from exhaustion, or from a determination not to survive the loss of his ship, Burgoyne refused to jump, and he was never seen again. The loss of the Captain exposed the fragility of the Victorian fleet and the poor design of some of its capital ships. Burgoyne was not blamed by the subsequent court-martial and the various inquiries, and was commemorated, with his crew, by a plaque in St Paul's Cathedral.

J. K. Laughton, rev. Roger Morriss

Sources

R. W. O'Byrne, The Victorian cross (1880), 45 · Minutes of the proceedings of the court-martial on the loss of HMS Captain, published by order of the lords commissioners of the admiralty, TNA: PRO · G. Wrottesley, Life and correspondence of FieldMarshal Sir John Fox Burgoyne, 2 (1873) · Annual Register (1870) · Burke, Peerage · Gladstone, Diaries · CGPLA Eng. & Wales (1871)

Wealth at death

under £600: administration, 16 March 1871, CGPLA Eng. & Wales

Note: http://www.pdavis.nl/ShowBiog.php?id=1098

Date Rank

1847 Entered Navy

11 Jan 1854 Lieutenant

10 May 1856 Commander

15 May 1861 Captain

Note: http://www.hmscaptain.co.uk/

Was the only son of Field Marshal Sir John Fox Burgoyne, by Charlotte, second daughter and co- heiress of Lieutenant-CoIonel Hugh Rose, of Holme in the county of Nairn, North Britain, He was born in 1833, in Dublin, where his father held, for some years, the chairmanship of the Board of Public Works. Capt. Burgoyne entered the royal navy in 1847, and was made a Commander in 1856. He commanded the "Wrangler" gunboat at the taking of Kinburn; and, in 1857, be was one of the first recipients of the Victoria Cross. He married, in 1864 Evelyn Laura, daughter of Admiral Sir Baldwin W. Walker. Captain Burgoyne wore the Baltic and Crimean medals, and the Azoff clasp ; he was also a Knight of the Legion of Honour, and received the Order of the Medjidie of the 5th class.

Sources

• Wikipedia:Hugh_Burgoyne - Hugh Burgoyne

• WikiTree profile Burgoyne-155 created through the import of poshburg.ged on Jun 14, 2011 by Torven Zeffertt.