Smith Child - Admiral of the Blue

The deck of an 18th century warship.
Illustration by W. H. Overend.

Smith Child, later an admiral in the Royal Navy who also dabbled locally in the pottery industry, was born at the family seat of Boyles Hall, Audley in early 1729, being baptised in the local church on 15 May that year. He was the eldest son of Smith Child of Audley and the wealthy heiress Mary nee Baddeley, whose family had a long Staffordshire pedigree. The Childs by contrast were originally a Worcestershire family one branch of which had migrated to North Staffordshire, settling in Audley. They had once possessed considerable property, but most of this had been lost by the future admiral's father, whom local historian John Ward described as 'a man of polished manners, but wasteful in his habits'. His marriage to Mary Baddeley was therefore quite a coup by which his family inherited several of the Baddeley estates that his eldest boy, Smith, would inherit. In a slightly comic preamble, Ward then continued his account of Mr Child to describe how his son came to join the Royal Navy.

'Once, during a visit to Scot­land, (where he went on mercantile business,) he was introduced to and entertained by the Duke of Hamilton, whom he accompanied in one of his hunting excursions (such as are described in Sir Walter Scott's Waverley), and being in that country during the expedition of the ill-fated Charles Stuart, in 1745, he was twice arrested, after the defeat of the rebel forces, on suspicion of being the Pretender, to whom he bore a strong resemblance. He travelled from Scotland in company with Lord Glenorchy, who advised him to bring his son up to the Navy, and introduced him to Lord Anson, the Circumnavigator, at that time one of the Lords of the Admiralty'.

- Ward, p.86

Enjoying the patronage of the politician Earl Gower as well as Vice-Admiral Lord George Anson, young Smith Child entered the navy in 1747 as a midshipman aboard the 50 gun HMS Chester, under Captain Sir Richard Spry. He was commissioned lieutenant on 7 November 1755 whilst serving in the Mediterranean aboard the Unicorn, under Captain Matthew Buckle, and returned home to become a junior lieutenant aboard the ancient Nore guardship Princess Royal commanded by Captain Richard Collins. He subsequently served as a lieutenant on various ships, seeing action during the Seven Years War at the sieges of Louisbourg in North America in 1758 and at Pondicherry, India, during 1760-1.

A distant view of  Newfield Hall, left.

During the peace of 1763, Smith Child returned home and erected a large pottery factory in Tunstall, that between 1763-1790 produced a range of earthenware goods. The following year he married Margaret Roylance of Newfield, Staffordshire  acquiring a significant estate from her family. Initially he lived with his wife at Newcastle-Under-Lyme, but the following year he inherited his uncle’s seat, Newfield Hall, Tunstall, a large three storey house with a five-bay entrance front and seven-bay side elevation, that enjoyed impressive views over much of the potteries. In 1770, he moved into the hall rebuilding it and in his time on shore cultivated a keen interest in agricultural and other useful pursuits. Here the Childs lived a happy life and raised their five sons: Thomas, who as a midshipman was drowned at sea in 1782; John George whose son later became heir to the family estates; Smith who died without children; and Roylance and Baddeley, whose names recalled their most recent family history.

At the beginning of what became the American Revolutionary War, Smith Child resumed his naval duties and in early in 1777, was given command of the hospital ship Nightingale in the Thames. Later that year he was promoted commander of the store ship HMS Pacific on 30 October 1777, taking the ship out to North America in the summer of 1778. 

A typical third rate ship of the line like Child's ship HMS Europe.

He was posted captain on 15 May 1780, taking temporary command of the Raisonnable, but in August 1780 in the most important move of his career, Captain Child was given command of the 64-gun HMS Europe and took part in two important sea battles for the control of the strategic Chesapeake Bay. As part of Admiral Marriot Arbuthnot's fleet, Child participated in the Battle of Cape Henry on 16 March in which the British fought off a French fleet attempting to enter the Bay. Positioned in the vanguard of Arbuthnot's fleet, Europe was one of three ships left exposed by the admiral’s poor tactics, losing eight crewmen killed and nineteen wounded to the punishing French bombardment. The British won this round despite their casualties, but the vital waterway would be the scene of one more dramatic fight. 

This was the Battle of the Chesapeake, also known as the Battle of the Capes, fought against a slightly larger French fleet on 5 September 1781, when HMS Europe along with the 74-gun HMS Montagu, formed the leading part of the centre division of Admiral Sir Thomas Graves' fleet, and was heavily involved in the fighting that ensued. These two ships suffered considerable damage in the intense two hour fight, at the end of which Europe was left leaking badly, her rigging cut up and a number of guns dismounted. Nine members of her crew were killed, and a further 18 wounded. Outgunned and battered by the encounter, the British fleet eventually withdrew from the action, finally losing control of the bay, which soon after resulted in the the Franco-American victory at Yorktown. The knock-on effect of this saw the withdrawal of British forces from the war and Britain's eventual recognition of the newly-born United States of America. This outcome was no discredit to Smith Child, though, who had fought well and his standing in the navy enabled him to obtain preferment for most of Europe's officers when the ship returned home and was paid off in March 1782.

18th Century naval officers and crewmen.

After serving for some time in the Impress Service at Liverpool, in November 1795 Smith Child was given command of the HMS Commerce de Marseille, a French ship that had been surrendered to the Royal Navy in the 1793 Siege of Toulon. The ship, originally a 118-gun three-decker, had been converted to a store and transport ship, and was loaded with 1,000 men and stores for transport supposedly on a secret mission to the West Indies. The ship was in somewhat poor condition before sailing and she was further damaged in a storm not long after setting out on her voyage; as a result Child was forced to return to Portsmouth.

Child was promoted to Rear Admiral on 14 February 1799, but saw no further action. Subsequently promoted to Vice Admiral on 23 April 1804, and Admiral of the Blue (the junior position in the rank of full admiral) on 31 July 1810. 

At home, as well as being a noted pottery manufacturer, the Admiral served at times as a Justice of the Peace for Staffordshire, a Deputy-Lieutenant of the county, and was a highly respected member of the local landed aristocracy. He died of gout of the stomach on 21 January 1813 at Newfield, and was buried in St. Margaret’s Church, Wolstanton, under a plain tombstone. His son and heir John had died two years previously, so Smith Child's estate passed to his five year-old grandson who would later become the Conservative M.P, and noted philanthropist Sir Smith Child.

Reference: John Ward, The Borough of Stoke-Upon-Trent (1843)