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Frederick Beauchamp Paget Seymour, Baron Alcester

1911 Encyclopedia Britannica

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Baron (1821-1895), British admiral, son of Colonel Sir Horace Beauchamp Seymour and cousin of Francis George Hugh Seymour, 5th marquess of Hertford, was born on the 12th of April 1821. Entering the navy in 1834, he served in the Mediterranean and the Pacific, was for three years flag-lieutenant to his uncle Sir George Seymour, and was promoted to be commander in 1847. He served in Burma as a volunteer in 1852, was made a captain in 1854, took the "Meteor" ironclad battery out to the Black Sea and home again in 1856, was captain of the "Pelorus" on the Australian station from 1857 to 1863, and commanded the naval brigade in New Zealand during the Maori War, 1860-61, for which he was made a C.B. He became a rear-admiral in 1870; in 1871-1872 he commanded the flying squadron, was a lord of the admiralty in 1872-1874, and commanded the Channel fleet, 1874-1876. On the 31st of December 1876 he was made a vice-admiral, a K.C.B. on the 2nd of June 1877. In 1880-1883 he was commander-in-chief of the fleet in the Mediterranean, and in 1880 had also the chief command of the European squadron sent to the coast of Albania as a demonstration to compel the Porte to cede Dulcigno to Montenegro. On the 24th of May 1881 he was made a G.C.B., and on the 6th of May 1882 was promoted to the rank of admiral. In July 1882 he commanded at the bombardment of Alexandria and in the subsequent operations on the coast of Egypt, for which service he was raised to the peerage as Baron Alcester of Alcester in the county of Warwick, received a parliamentary grant of £25,000, the freedom of the city of London and a sword of honour. On his return from the Mediterranean he was for a couple of years again at the admiralty, and in 1886 he was placed on the retired list. For the next nine years he lived chiefly in London, but latterly his health was much broken, and he died on the 30th of March 1895. He was unmarried and the peerage became extinct.