James Alexander Gordon, born 6 October 1782, died 8 January 1869, was a distinguished British naval officer of the Napoleonic Wars whose 75 years in the service, from Midshipman to Admiral of the Fleet, was unprecedented in its duration. It has been speculated that he was the model for the ‘Hornblower’ novels of C.S. Forester 1782 was a common year starting on Tuesday (see link for calendar). ... Jump to: navigation, search 1869 is a common year starting on Friday (link will take you to calendar). ... Jump to: navigation, search The Napoleonic Wars were a series of wars fought during Napoleon Bonapartes rule over France. ... For the fishes called midshipman, see Midshipman fish In the navies of English-speaking countries, a midshipman is a low-ranking commissioned officer, usually the lowest rank. ... Admiral of the Fleet is a supreme naval position that has existed both in historical navies and several modern day navies of the 21st century. ... Cecil Scott Forester is the pen name of Cecil Smith (August 27, 1899 - April 2, 1966), an English novelist whose rose to fame with tales of adventure with military themes, notably the 11-book Horatio Hornblower series (being filmed with Ioan Gruffudd as Horatio Hornblower) about naval warfare during the...

Early Career

Gordon came of a family of minor Highland gentry of Jacobite sympathies, the Gordons of Beldorny and Wardhouse. He was born in Aberdeen, and entered the Royal Navy in 1793 as a Midshipman in HMS Arrogant (74). He transferred in 1795 to the frigate Révolutionnaire, which took part in Lord Bridport's action off the Ile de Groix on 23 June of that year. In 1796 he moved to the ship-of-the-line HMS Namur (90), in which he was present at the Battle of Cape St Vincent, 13/14 February 1797. Later in 1797 Gordon became Master’s Mate aboard HMS Goliath (74), which on 1 August formed part of the fleet under Lord Nelson which inflicted a crushing defeat upon Napoleon’s ships at the Battle of Aboukir Bay. In 1800 he was appointed second Lieutenant of the sloop Bordelais which on 29 January 1801, while escorting a convoy to the West Indies, fought a smart action with three French brigs, capturing one. In the Caribbean later that year Gordon, on an independent mission, was captured by the Haitian government of Toussaint L’Ouverture and spent four months in prison before being released by cartel. He was made first Lieutenant of the brig HMS Raccoon (18) in 1802 and returned to the West Indies. As a result of Raccoon's capture of the French corvette Lodi on 11 July 1803, Gordon was promoted to Commander and himself became Raccoon’s captain on 22 October. Jump to: navigation, search This article is not about the Jacobite Orthodox Church, nor is it about Jacobinism or the earlier Jacobean period. ... Jump to: navigation, search Aberdeens location in Scotland Aberdeen (Obar Dheathain in Scottish Gaelic) is Scotlands third largest city, with a population of 212,125. ... There are three Battles of Cape St Vincent The Battle of Cape St Vincent, 14 February 1797 by Robert Cleveley, painted 1798, shows the end of the battle with the captured Spanish ship Salvador del Mundo in the right foreground. ... Nelson is the name of several towns, cities, counties, regions around the world: Nelson, New Zealand Nelson, Lancashire, England Nelson, British Columbia Nelson, Georgia Nelson, Illinois Nelson, Missouri Nelson, Minnesota Nelson, Nebraska Nelson, New Hampshire Nelson, New York Nelson, Wisconsin Nelson County, Kentucky Nelson County, North Dakota Nelson County, Virginia... For other uses, see Napoleon (disambiguation). ... Battle of the Nile Conflict French Revolutionary Wars Date August 1, 1798 – August 2, 1798 Place Aboukir Bay, Egypt Result Decisive British victory The Battle of the Nile, also known as the Battle of Aboukir Bay, was an important naval battle of the French Revolutionary Wars between a British fleet... Jump to: navigation, search A Lieutenant is a military, paramilitary or police officer. ... The Caribbean or the West Indies is a group of islands in the Caribbean Sea. ... In sailing, a brig is a vessel with two masts at least one of which is square rigged. ... ... François-Dominique Toussaint LOuverture, also Toussaint Breda, Toussaint-Louverture (1743 - April 7, 1803) was one of the leaders of the Haitian Revolution. ... French steam corvette Dupleix (1856-1887) Canadian corvettes on antisubmarine convoy escort duty during World War II. A corvette is a small, maneuverable, lightly armed warship, smaller than a frigate. ...

Frigate Captain

Gordon was created Post Captain in May 1805 and assigned command of the frigate Laegera (28), but was unable to take up the position because of illness. He was without a command until 1807, when he took over the frigate HMS Mercury (28), engaged in blockade duties off Cadiz, and was part of a hard-fought action between three British ships and the combined forces of a Spanish convoy, 20 gunboats and land artillery off the town of Rota on 4 April 1808. On 27 June he became captain of the frigate HMS Active (38) at Gibraltar and spent the next three years in operations in the Mediterranean and Adriatic. Active was one of the four ships under the command of William Hoste that successfully defeated a much larger French squadron at the first Battle of Lissa, 13 March 1811, and on 28 November she was one of three that defeated three more powerful French frigates off Pelagosa. In this latter action Gordon’s left knee was shattered by a cannon ball and his leg had to be amputated; he used a wooden leg for the remainder of his life. He recuperated in Malta and was able to take Active back to England in June 1812, where he married and then took command of the frigate Seahorse, escorting convoys for the West Indies and enforcing the blockade of France. In 1814 she transferred to the American station, where the War of 1812 was still under way. Gordon, with Charles Napier as his second in command, distinguished himself as commodore leading the successful expedition up the Potomac, 17 August-6 September, and also took part in the bombardment of Baltimore and the attack on Fort McHenry, 12-14 September. Post-Captain is an obsolete alternative form of the rank of Captain in the Royal Navy. ... A blockade is an effort usually (but not always, see below) at sea, to prevent supplies from reaching the enemy. ... This article is about the Spanish city. ... Look up rota in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... The Mediterranean Sea is an intercontinental sea positioned between Europe to the north, Africa to the south and Asia to the east, covering an approximate area of 2. ... The Adriatic Sea is an arm of the Mediterranean Sea separating the Apennine peninsula (Italy) from the Balkan peninsula, and the system of the Apennine Mountains from that of the Dinaric Alps and adjacent ranges. ... Sir William Hoste (26 August 1780 - 6 December 1828), Royal Navy captain, was the son of Dixon Hoste, rector of Godwick and Tittleshall in Norfolk. ... The naval Battle of Lissa was fought on 13 March 1811 just north of the Adriatic island of Lissa (now Vis) between a Franco-Venetian squadron under French commodore Bernard Dubourdieu, and a small British force under Captain (afterwards Sir) William Hoste. ... Jump to: navigation, search The War of 1812 was a conflict fought on land in North America and at sea around the world between the United States and United Kingdom from 1812 to 1815. ... Charles Napier can refer to: Charles Napier, an American actor General Sir Charles James Napier, a British soldier Admiral Sir Charles Napier, a British naval officer This is a disambiguation page — a navigational aid which lists other pages that might otherwise share the same title. ... Potomac may refer to: Potomac River, which flows through Washington DC and Alexandria VA, USA Potomac, an unincorporated area in Montgomery County, Maryland, USA Potomac, a village in Vermilion County, Illinois, USA Potomac, a Native American tribe A general term given to the Washington, D.C./Maryland metropolitan area One... This article is about the city in the US state of Maryland. ... Jump to: navigation, search Fort McHenry, in Baltimore, Maryland, is a star fort best known for its role in the War of 1812, when it successfully defended Baltimore Harbor from an attack by the British navy in Chesapeake Bay. ...

Postwar career

Gordon was made a KCB in 1815 for his activities in the American War. He was lucky after the cessation of hostilities against the USA and Napoleon to continue for a while in seagoing commands, as captain of the frigate Madagascar in 1815-16 and then of the frigate Meander in the latter year. In 1819 he rejoined his old command, HMS Active, and was again her captain until 1821. After this he held no further seagoing command. He was appointed Superintendent of the Naval Hospital at Plymouth in 1828, and in 1832 moved on to become Superintendent of Chatham Dockyard. He attained the rank of Rear Admiral in 1837, and in 1840 became Lieutenant-Governor of the Royal Naval Hospital at Greenwich; he would remain associated with the running of that institution and the care of old seamen until his death. He became a Vice-Admiral in 1848 and full Admiral in 1853, in which year he succeeded to Sir Robert Stopford as Governor of the Greenwich Hospital. On 30 January 1868, aged 86, he attained the rank of Admiral of the Fleet. He died at Greenwich just under a year later and was buried in the Hospital grounds. An obituary in Macmillan’s Magazine hailed him as ‘The Last of Nelson’s Captains’. KCB is a TLA that may stand for: Keep Chicago Beautiful (kcb. ... Jump to: navigation, search Smeatons tower on Plymouth Hoe Plymouth is a city in the South West of England, or alternatively the Westcountry, and is situated within the traditional county of Devon. ... Chatham Dockyard, located on the River Medway in Kent, England, came into existence at the time when, following the Reformation, relations with the Catholic countries of Europe had worsened, and thus requiring added defences. ... The term Rear Admiral originated from the days of Naval Sailing Squadrons, and can trace its origins to the British Royal Navy. ... Greenwich (pronounced gren-itch , or by the locals) is a town, now part of the south eastern urban sprawl of London, on the south bank of the river Thames in the London Borough of Greenwich. ... Vice Admiral is a naval rank of three star level, equivalent to Lieutenant General in seniority. ... The Right Reverend Robert Wright Stopford, CBE. Bishop Stopford Educated at Coatham School in Redcar. ...

Posthumous Reputation

By the time of his death Gordon was largely forgotten, and his only modern biography trades heavily on the thesis that he was the principal model for C.S. Forester’s hero Horatio Hornblower. It is clear that Forester was familiar with the facts of Gordon’s life, and it may be significant that in his history of the War of 1812 he very nearly avoids mentioning Gordon at all while giving full details of most of the other officers involved. There are indeed many parallels between Gordon’s career and Hornblower’s, but many divergences also, and it remains likely that Forester’s hero is an amalgam of several leading officers of the Napoleonic War period, notably including Thomas Cochrane (who was also a partial model for Patrick O'Brian's sailor hero, Jack Aubrey). Jump to: navigation, search Horatio Hornblower is a fictional officer in the British Royal Navy during the Napoleonic Wars, originally the protagonist of a series of novels by C. S. Forester, and later the subject of films and television programs. ... Thomas Cochrane, 10th Earl of Dundonald Thomas Cochrane, 10th Earl of Dundonald (14 December 1775–October 31, 1860) was a politician and naval adventurer. ... Patrick OBrian (December 12, 1914 – January 2, 2000; original name Richard Patrick Russ) was a novelist and translator, best known for his Aubrey–Maturin series of novels set in the Royal Navy during the Napoleonic Wars and centered on the friendship of Captain Jack Aubrey and an Irish–Catalan... The Aubrey–Maturin series, also known as the Aubreyad, is a sequence of 20 historical novels by Patrick OBrian, set during the Napoleonic Wars and centering on the friendship between Captain Jack Aubrey of the Royal Navy and his ships surgeon Stephen Maturin, who is also a physician...

Source: Bryan Perrett, The Real Hornblower: The Life and Times of Admiral Sir James Gordon, GCB (London, 1998)