Hugh Cloberry Christian

Rear-Admiral of the White Sir Hugh Cloberry Christian, KB (1747 – 23 November 1798) was a Royal Navy officer who served in the American War of Independence and the French Revolutionary Wars. Details of his early life are obscure, but he appears to have served initially in the English Channel and the Mediterranean, before obtaining the rank of captain and going out to North America with Commodore Joshua Rowley. Christian was Rowley's flag-captain on for several years, and saw action in several of the naval engagements of the American War of Independence.

Returning to Britain at the end of the war, he spent a period without active employment, before receiving a post as second captain aboard Lord Howe's flagship, the 100-gun , during the Nootka Crisis. He temporarily left her when the crisis abated, but the outbreak of the French Revolutionary Wars led to his return to Queen Charlotte. Christian stepped down from her in 1794 to join the Transport Board, and in 1795 was promoted to rear-admiral.

He was made commander-in-chief in the Leeward Islands Station and given the task of transporting a large troop convoy. Twice he attempted the crossing of the Atlantic, and twice he was forced back by severe gales which ravaged his fleet and wrecked a number of the merchant ships in the convoy. He made a third attempt in 1796, and succeeded in shepherding the fleet to its destination. He was then active in using the troops and his naval forces to capture the islands of Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and Grenada, before returning to England. He was made second in command at the Cape of Good Hope in 1797, succeeding to commander-in-chief the following year, and he died while in command there in November 1798.

Family and early life Christian, descended from residents of the Isle of Man, was born at Hook Norton, Oxfordshire in 1747. His father, Thomas Christian, was a captain with his own privateer, whilst his mother, Anne Penny was a poet. He followed his father into the navy in 1761, spending time in the English Channel and the Mediterranean, but few details of his early service survive, other than that he took his lieutenant's examination in 1767, and received his commission on 21 January 1771. He married Ann Leigh, resident of the Isle of Wight on 6 March 1775, and was promoted to master and commander in 1778. The Suffolk arrived in the Leeward Islands on 12 February 1779, and Christian remained with Rowley in the West Indies, serving with Vice-Admiral John Byron at the Battle of Grenada on 6 July 1779. Rowley shifted his flag to the 74-gun after these clashes, and Christian was transferred to command the 38-gun , the frigate he had helped to capture in 1779. He was present at the Battle of the Chesapeake on 5 September 1781, after which he returned to the West Indies. The easing of tensions meant that Queen Charlotte was paid off at the end of the year, and Christian again found himself without a ship. He was then appointed commander-in-chief of the Leeward Islands Station in 1796, and was instructed to take a fleet out with a convoy of transports, carrying soldiers for operations against the French and Dutch colonies there.

Attempts to cross the Atlantic The fleet did not leave Spithead until 16 November, the departure having been delayed until late in the season. Again the ships encountered severe gales that caused considerable damage, forcing nine of the warships and fifty of the merchantmen to struggle back to port on 29 January. Some of the convoy successfully made the crossing, while others were wrecked, or captured by enemy ships. Christian again shifted his flag, this time to the 74-gun , while he waited for repairs to his ships to be completed, and the merchantmen gathered to make a third attempt to reach the West Indies. While ashore he was invested as a Knight Companion of the Order of the Bath on 17 February 1796, and on 20 March he left Spithead again, bound for the West Indies. The third voyage was successful, and he arrived at Carlisle Bay, Barbados on 21 April. He joined with the forces of the station's current commander, Sir John Laforey several days later, and took over the command from him. He succeeded Admiral Thomas Pringle as the station commander in 1798, but died on 23 November that year at the age of 51. His wife, who had been seriously ill for sometime, died two months later, without having heard of her husband's death. Hugh Cloberry Christian had been created a peer, and chose the title of Lord Ronaldsway to honour his ancestor, Manx politician Illiam Dhone, but died before the patent reached him. He was buried at the Cape. He and his wife had two sons and three daughters; one son, Hood Hanway Christian, became a Rear Admiral.