Samuel Hood, 1st Viscount Hood

Admiral of the Red Samuel Hood, 1st Viscount Hood (12 December 1724 – 27 January 1816) was a Royal Navy officer and politician. As a junior officer he saw action during the War of the Austrian Succession. While in temporary command of , Hood drove a French ship ashore in Audierne Bay, and captured two privateers in 1757 during the Seven Years' War. He held senior command as Commander-in-Chief, North American Station and then as Commander-in-Chief, Leeward Islands Station.

During the American War of Independence, Hood led the British navy to victory at the Battle of the Mona Passage in April 1782. He went on to be Commander-in-Chief, Portsmouth, then First Naval Lord and, after briefly returning to the Portsmouth command, became Commander-in-Chief, Mediterranean Fleet during the French Revolutionary Wars. His younger brother was Alexander Hood, 1st Viscount Bridport, and his first cousin once-removed was Sir Samuel Hood, 1st Baronet.

Early life

Childhood Hood was the eldest son of Rev. Samuel Hood, vicar of Butleigh in Somerset and prebendary of Wells, and Mary Hoskins, daughter of Richard Hoskins, Esq., of Beaminster, Dorset. In 1740, Captain Thomas Smith was stranded in Butleigh when his carriage broke down on the way to Plymouth. The Rev. Samuel Hood rescued him and gave him hospitality for the night. Samuel and his younger brother Alexander were inspired by his stories of the sea and he offered to help them in the Navy. While granting permission for Samuel and Alexander to join the Navy, the Rev. Samuel Hood and his wife decided to prohibit similar service by his other sons as "they might be drowned". Their third son, Arthur William, became Vicar of Butleigh but died of fever in his 30s. Another son drowned in the local River Brue as a boy.

Early career

Hood joined the Royal Navy as a midshipman in 1741. He served part of his time as midshipman with George Rodney in the and became a lieutenant on 17 June 1746. Still in North America, Hood became flag captain to Commodore Charles Holmes in the . In 1778, he accepted a command which in the ordinary course would have terminated his active career, becoming Commissioner of the dockyard at Portsmouth and governor of the Naval Academy. and sent him to the West Indies to act as second in command under Rodney, who knew him personally. He joined Rodney in January 1781 in his flagship , and remained in the West Indies or on the coast of North America until the close of the American War of Independence.

Battle of the Mona Passage

Eventually Hood was ordered to chase, and with his division of 12 ships he captured 4 ships at the Mona Passage on 19 April 1782, thus completing the defeat. While serving in the Caribbean, Hood became acquainted with, and later became a mentor to, Horatio Nelson, who was a young frigate captain. Hood had been a friend of Nelson's uncle Maurice Suckling. In 1782 Hood introduced Nelson to the Duke of Clarence, the future King William IV, who was then a serving naval officer in New York.

Peace

Hood was made an Irish peer as Baron Hood of Catherington in September 1782. retired from the Portsmouth Command in 1789. He was appointed to the Board of Admiralty under John Pitt, 2nd Earl of Chatham, brother of the Prime Minister, in July 1788 He became Commander-in-Chief, Portsmouth again in June 1792.

French Revolution

Defence of Toulon

On 1 February 1793, the same day Revolutionary France declared war on Britain and brought it into the War of the First Coalition, Hood was promoted to Vice-Admiral of the Red. In the same month, he was appointed as the commander-in-chief of the Mediterranean Fleet. In August 1793 French royalists and federalists took over the city of Toulon and invited Hood, whose fleet was blockading offshore, to occupy it. Hood, without time to request instructions from the Admiralty in London, moved swiftly to take command of Toulon. He was promoted to Admiral of the Blue on 12 April 1794.

Later career

Hood was created Viscount Hood of Whitley, Warwickshire in 1796 with a pension of £2000 per year for life (about £ a year in terms). In 1796, he was also appointed Governour of the Greenwich Hospital, a position which he held until his death. He served as Tory Member of Parliament for Westminster from 1784 to 1788 and from 1790 to 1796, and was Member for Reigate between 1789 and 1790. Hood was promoted to Admiral of the White on 14 February 1799 and again to Admiral of the Red on 9 October 1805. He died in Greenwich on 27 January 1816 and is buried in Greenwich Hospital Cemetery. and Mayor of Portsmouth. By his wife he had issue including: Henry Hood, 2nd Viscount Hood (1753–1836), son and heir.

Legacy A biographical notice of Hood by McArthur, his secretary during the Mediterranean command, appeared in the Naval Chronicle, vol. ii. His correspondence during his command in America was published by the Navy Records Society.

In 1792, Lieutenant William Broughton, sailing with the expedition of George Vancouver to the Northwest Coast of North America, named Mount Hood in present-day Oregon, and Hood's Canal in present-day Washington, after Hood. Port Hood, Nova Scotia, is also named after him.

Two of the three ships of the Royal Navy named HMS Hood were named after him as well. One of these, the battlecruiser , was sunk by the in 1941 during the Second World War.

Portrayal Hood was portrayed by David Torrence in the 1935 film Mutiny on the Bounty.