Rowland Mainwaring

Rear-Admiral Rowland Mainwaring (31 December 1783 – 1862) was an English officer in the Royal Navy.

Origins Rowland Mainwaring, born on 31 December 1783, was the eldest surviving son of Rowland Mainwaring, Esq., of Four Oaks, County Warwick, a field officer, by Jane, daughter of Captain Latham, Royal Navy. He was a cousin of Rear-Admiral Thomas Francis Charles Mainwaring; and was the representative of an ancient Staffordshire family, settled for many centuries at Whitmore Hall, near Newcastle-under-Lyne.

He was also on board HMS Majestic at the battle of the Nile, after which, in consequence of Captain Westcott having been killed, he was, in October 1798, removed into the frigate Thalia, commanded by Lord Henry Paulet, under whom he was further employed in the Defence, 74 guns, on different European stations, until within a short period of his being made Lieutenant, on 7 December 1801, he was appointed lieutenant of the Harpy sloop, Captains Charles Worsley Boys and Edmund Heywood. The services in which he participated between July 1809 and December 1810 were in connexion with Captain Frederick Aylmer. The following is the copy of an official letter written by Sir Peter Parker, who was once Mainwaring's messmate in the Leda:

The St. Joseph was pierced for sixteen guns, but had none mounted.

In July 1812 the Menelaus was cruising on the coast of Italy, and Sir Peter Parker reported the capture of the French xebec La Paix, mounting two long 6-pounders, with a complement of thirty men, "under circumstances peculiarly honourable to Lieutenant Mainwaring, who boarded and brought her out from within pistol-shot of the towers of Terracina, under a galling fire. If any thing from my pen", he continues, "could do justice to his merit, I would write it with pleasure, but that I feel to be impossible. The Menelaus was anchored well within range of the batteries; the distance, however, in consequence of the shoal water, prevented her fire being of that effect, against such strong defences, which was intended. I have to regret one seaman killed by a grape-shot."

During the night of 2 September 1812, the French letter of marque St. Esprit, pierced for twelve guns, but with only two six-pounders mounted, was cut out from the river Mignone, near Civita Vecchia, under a heavy fire from the batteries.

After commanding for some time the Gorgon, 44 guns, armed en flûte, at Port Mahon, Mainwaring was successively appointed acting captain of the Edinburgh, 74 guns, Undaunted and Euryalus frigates, and Caledonia first-rate, the latter ship bearing the flag of Sir Edward Pellew. He was subsequently placed by that officer in the Kite sloop, and sent to the Archipelago, where he destroyed a French privateer, rescued a valuable merchantman which she had captured, and obtained from the Bey of Salonica a promise, that in future no vessels of the same description should be equipped in his harbours. |coronet=|badgeimage=