Charles Edmund Nugent

Admiral of the Fleet Sir Charles Edmund Nugent ( – 7 January 1844) was a Royal Navy officer. He saw action as a junior officer in the 50-gun at the Battle of Sullivan's Island during the American Revolutionary War. He was held as a prisoner-of war for a day by Spaniards shortly before the Battle of San Fernando de Omoa later on in the War.

Nugent served in the naval brigade in the invasions of Martinique, Saint Lucia, and Guadaloupe during the French Revolutionary Wars and, when William Cornwallis assumed command of the blockade of Brest, Nugent was selected to serve as his Captain of the Fleet during the Napoleonic Wars. He never commanded any fleet or naval station but did rise to the highest rank in the Navy.

Early career He was the son of Lieutenant Colonel the Honourable Edmund Nugent, the only son of Robert Nugent, 1st Earl Nugent, but after his father's death in 1771 his marriage was found to have been illegal, and he and his elder brother George were declared illegitimate, and thus unable to inherit any of his grandfather's titles.

Nugent entered the Navy as a youngster in 1771, serving aboard the sloop Scorpion, commanded by George Elphinstone (later Viscount Keith) until 1774. He then served aboard , flagship of Sir Peter Denis, in the Mediterranean. and to vice-admiral on 1 January 1801. In mid-1805, when William Cornwallis assumed command of the blockade of Brest, Nugent was selected to serve as his Captain of the Fleet. He saw no further service at sea, but was promoted to full admiral on 28 April 1808, and to Admiral of the Fleet on 24 April 1833, becoming the most senior officer of the Royal Navy, at the same time that his brother, Field Marshal Sir George Nugent, held the same position in the British Army.

On 12 March 1834 Nugent was made a Knight Grand Cross of the Hanoverian Order.