William Augustus Montagu

Vice-Admiral Sir William Augustus Montagu (4 December 1785 – 6 March 1852) was a senior officer of the British Royal Navy during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars who served in a number of sea battles and was also in command of the naval brigade in the brief land campaign to capture Île de France in 1810. During his service he was present at the capture of numerous French frigates and later served in the War of 1812. After the end of the Napoleonic Wars he remained in service and commanded several ships in the Mediterranean before he retired from active service in 1837. He remained a commissioned officer and later rose through the ranks to become a vice-admiral. For his services he was knighted in the Royal Guelphic Order and made a Companion of the Order of the Bath.

Family background Born in 1785, William Augustus Montagu was an illegitimate son of John Montagu, 5th Earl of Sandwich, by Maria. He was baptised at St Anne's Church, Soho, Westminster.

In September 1812, Montagu returned to Europe to command HMS Niobe in the Channel Fleet, later serving off the United States during the War of 1812 and in Portuguese waters. In June 1814, with the war coming to an end, Niobe was paid off and Montagu was in reserve until 1819, when he took command of HMS Phaeton in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Between 1818 and 1820 he sat in Parliament for Huntingdon. In 1822, Phaeton was paid off and Montagu was in reserve until 1834, marrying Anne Leeds, daughter of Sir George William Leeds in 1823. Montagu took command of HMS Malabar in 1834 and remained in her until 1837 in the Mediterranean. This was his final commission and when he was placed in reserve again in 1837 he did not return to the sea. He remained in the Navy however and slowly rose through the ranks, becoming a rear-admiral in 1841 and a vice admiral in 1851.

Montagu was knighted in 1830 in the Royal Guelphic Order and in 1832 became a Knight Commander, accompanied by a Knight Bachelor award for use in Britain. He had previously been made a Companion of the Order of the Bath in 1815 at the end of the war. He died at Ryde, on the Isle of Wight in March 1852.