Charles Adam
Encyclopedia
Admiral Sir Charles Adam, KCB
(6 October 1780 – 19 September 1853) was a British
naval officer. He was the second son of William Adam of Blair Adam
and his wife Eleanora, the daughter of Charles Elphinstone, 10th Lord Elphinstone and sister of Lord Keith
.
, under the patronage of his uncle, and served under him in the Mediterranean and during the capture of the Cape of Good Hope
from the Dutch. He was made acting lieutenant by Keith in 1795 and sent aboard , on the East Indies
station. He was promoted lieutenant
on 8 February 1798 and commander
on 16 May 1798. The next year, on 12 June 1799, Adam was promoted to captain
and given command of the frigate
Sybille
. While commanding Sybille, he captured the French Chiffonne under difficult circumstances at Mahé
in the Seychelles
.
Adam returned from the East Indies in 1802, and on 23 May 1803, was given command of the captured Chiffonne, which operated in the North Sea
under Lord Keith until 1805. He commanded Resistance from 27 August 1805 until 6 April 1810, and from 1811 until 1813, operated off the coast of Spain
in command of Invincible
. He briefly commanded from 16 May 1814 to 29 June 1814, ending his active service.
.
He was promoted rear admiral
on 27 May 1825. From 1831 until 1841, he was Member of Parliament
for Clackmannanshire and Kinross-shire
, a seat previously held by several members of his family. He briefly served as First Naval Lord
from 1 November 1834 to 23 December 1834. He was awarded the KCB
on 10 January 1835 and was again appointed First Naval Lord on 25 April 1835.
Adam was a friend of Lord Auckland
and brother-in-law to Lord Minto
, both of whom served as First Lord of the Admiralty during his time in office, fostering a close working relationship. He was also on good terms with Lord Palmerston
, the Foreign Secretary.
During his tenure, the Admiralty Board dealt ably with the economies of a peacetime budget, which his Whig
loyalties prevented him from questioning. The one major naval campaign of the era was the expulsion of Muhammad Ali
's forces from Syria
in 1840, an able demonstration of the continued strength of the Royal Navy. During this time, technological progress continued at the Admiralty, with the decision to adapt Francis Pettit Smith
's screw propeller
, and the new battleship designs of Sir William Symonds
in 1841. During his tenure on the Board, Adam was promoted to vice admiral
on 10 January 1837.
After leaving the Board, Adam resumed a naval command. From 17 August 1841 until 27 December 1844, he was commander-in-chief of the North America and West Indies Station, aboard (flag-captain John Elphinstone Erskine). On 24 July 1846, soon after the reappointment of Lord Auckland as First Lord of the Admiralty, he became First Naval Lord for the third and last time. He retired the next year, on 20 July 1847, to become Governor of Greenwich Hospital, and was promoted admiral
on 8 January 1848. Adam died at Greenwich on 16 September 1853.
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Order of the Bath
The Most Honourable Order of the Bath is a British order of chivalry founded by George I on 18 May 1725. The name derives from the elaborate mediæval ceremony for creating a knight, which involved bathing as one of its elements. The knights so created were known as Knights of the Bath...
(6 October 1780 – 19 September 1853) was a British
Great Britain
Great Britain or Britain is an island situated to the northwest of Continental Europe. It is the ninth largest island in the world, and the largest European island, as well as the largest of the British Isles...
naval officer. He was the second son of William Adam of Blair Adam
William Adam (MP)
William Adam, KC was a Scottish Member of Parliament in the British Parliament and subsequently a Judge.-Biography:...
and his wife Eleanora, the daughter of Charles Elphinstone, 10th Lord Elphinstone and sister of Lord Keith
George Keith Elphinstone, 1st Viscount Keith
George Keith Elphinstone, 1st Viscount Keith was a British admiral active throughout the Napoleonic Wars.-Career:Fifth son of the 10th Lord Elphinstone, he was born in Elphinstone Tower, near Stirling, Scotland...
.
Naval career
He entered the navy in 1790, under the patronage of his uncle, and served under him in the Mediterranean and during the capture of the Cape of Good Hope
Cape of Good Hope
The Cape of Good Hope is a rocky headland on the Atlantic coast of the Cape Peninsula, South Africa.There is a misconception that the Cape of Good Hope is the southern tip of Africa, because it was once believed to be the dividing point between the Atlantic and Indian Oceans. In fact, the...
from the Dutch. He was made acting lieutenant by Keith in 1795 and sent aboard , on the East Indies
East Indies
East Indies is a term used by Europeans from the 16th century onwards to identify what is now known as Indian subcontinent or South Asia, Southeastern Asia, and the islands of Oceania, including the Malay Archipelago and the Philippines...
station. He was promoted lieutenant
Lieutenant
A lieutenant is a junior commissioned officer in many nations' armed forces. Typically, the rank of lieutenant in naval usage, while still a junior officer rank, is senior to the army rank...
on 8 February 1798 and commander
Commander
Commander is a naval rank which is also sometimes used as a military title depending on the individual customs of a given military service. Commander is also used as a rank or title in some organizations outside of the armed forces, particularly in police and law enforcement.-Commander as a naval...
on 16 May 1798. The next year, on 12 June 1799, Adam was promoted to captain
Captain (Royal Navy)
Captain is a senior officer rank of the Royal Navy. It ranks above Commander and below Commodore and has a NATO ranking code of OF-5. The rank is equivalent to a Colonel in the British Army or Royal Marines and to a Group Captain in the Royal Air Force. The rank of Group Captain is based on the...
and given command of the frigate
Frigate
A frigate is any of several types of warship, the term having been used for ships of various sizes and roles over the last few centuries.In the 17th century, the term was used for any warship built for speed and maneuverability, the description often used being "frigate-built"...
Sybille
French frigate Sibylle (1792)
The Sibylle was an 38-gun Hébé class frigate of the French Navy. She was launched in 1791 at the dockyards in Toulon and placed in service in 1792...
. While commanding Sybille, he captured the French Chiffonne under difficult circumstances at Mahé
Mahé, Seychelles
Mahé is the largest island of the Seychelles, lying in the north east of the nation. The population of Mahé is 80,000. It contains the capital city of Victoria and accommodates 90% of the country's total population...
in the Seychelles
Seychelles
Seychelles , officially the Republic of Seychelles , is an island country spanning an archipelago of 115 islands in the Indian Ocean, some east of mainland Africa, northeast of the island of Madagascar....
.
Adam returned from the East Indies in 1802, and on 23 May 1803, was given command of the captured Chiffonne, which operated in the North Sea
North Sea
In the southwest, beyond the Straits of Dover, the North Sea becomes the English Channel connecting to the Atlantic Ocean. In the east, it connects to the Baltic Sea via the Skagerrak and Kattegat, narrow straits that separate Denmark from Norway and Sweden respectively...
under Lord Keith until 1805. He commanded Resistance from 27 August 1805 until 6 April 1810, and from 1811 until 1813, operated off the coast of Spain
Spain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
in command of Invincible
HMS Invincible (1808)
HMS Invincible was a 74-gun third rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy, launched on 15 March 1808 at Woolwich.She was employed as a coal hulk from 1857, and was broken up in 1861....
. He briefly commanded from 16 May 1814 to 29 June 1814, ending his active service.
Administrative career
After the war, Adam twice commanded the royal yacht, Royal Sovereign, from 15 December 1814 until 7 February 1816 as acting captain and from 20 July 1821 to 25 May 1825 as captain. This appointment reflected the political influence of his father. During this period, in 1822, he married Elizabeth Brydone, by whom he had several children, including William Patrick AdamWilliam Patrick Adam
William Patrick Adam, CIE, DL was a British colonial administrator and Liberal politician. He was twice First Commissioner of Works under William Ewart Gladstone and also served briefly as Governor of Madras between 1880 and 1881.-Background and education:Adam was the son of Admiral Sir Charles...
.
He was promoted rear admiral
Rear Admiral
Rear admiral is a naval commissioned officer rank above that of a commodore and captain, and below that of a vice admiral. It is generally regarded as the lowest of the "admiral" ranks, which are also sometimes referred to as "flag officers" or "flag ranks"...
on 27 May 1825. From 1831 until 1841, he was Member of Parliament
Member of Parliament
A Member of Parliament is a representative of the voters to a :parliament. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, the term applies specifically to members of the lower house, as upper houses often have a different title, such as senate, and thus also have different titles for its members,...
for Clackmannanshire and Kinross-shire
Clackmannanshire and Kinross-shire (UK Parliament constituency)
Clackmannanshire and Kinross-shire were constituencies of the House of Commons of Great Britain from 1708 to 1801 and of the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom from 1801 to 1918....
, a seat previously held by several members of his family. He briefly served as First Naval Lord
First Sea Lord
The First Sea Lord is the professional head of the Royal Navy and the whole Naval Service; it was formerly known as First Naval Lord. He also holds the title of Chief of Naval Staff, and is known by the abbreviations 1SL/CNS...
from 1 November 1834 to 23 December 1834. He was awarded the KCB
Order of the Bath
The Most Honourable Order of the Bath is a British order of chivalry founded by George I on 18 May 1725. The name derives from the elaborate mediæval ceremony for creating a knight, which involved bathing as one of its elements. The knights so created were known as Knights of the Bath...
on 10 January 1835 and was again appointed First Naval Lord on 25 April 1835.
Adam was a friend of Lord Auckland
George Eden, 1st Earl of Auckland
George Eden, 1st Earl of Auckland, GCB, PC was a British Whig politician and colonial administrator. He was thrice First Lord of the Admiralty and also served as Governor-General of India between 1836 and 1842....
and brother-in-law to Lord Minto
Gilbert Elliot-Murray-Kynynmound, 2nd Earl of Minto
Gilbert Elliot-Murray-Kynynmound, 2nd Earl of Minto GCB, PC , styled as Viscount Melgund between 1813 and 1814, was a British diplomat and Whig politician.-Background and education:...
, both of whom served as First Lord of the Admiralty during his time in office, fostering a close working relationship. He was also on good terms with Lord Palmerston
Henry Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston
Henry John Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston, KG, GCB, PC , known popularly as Lord Palmerston, was a British statesman who served twice as Prime Minister in the mid-19th century...
, the Foreign Secretary.
During his tenure, the Admiralty Board dealt ably with the economies of a peacetime budget, which his Whig
British Whig Party
The Whigs were a party in the Parliament of England, Parliament of Great Britain, and Parliament of the United Kingdom, who contested power with the rival Tories from the 1680s to the 1850s. The Whigs' origin lay in constitutional monarchism and opposition to absolute rule...
loyalties prevented him from questioning. The one major naval campaign of the era was the expulsion of Muhammad Ali
Muhammad Ali of Egypt
Muhammad Ali Pasha al-Mas'ud ibn Agha was a commander in the Ottoman army, who became Wāli, and self-declared Khedive of Egypt and Sudan...
's forces from Syria
Syria
Syria , officially the Syrian Arab Republic , is a country in Western Asia, bordering Lebanon and the Mediterranean Sea to the West, Turkey to the north, Iraq to the east, Jordan to the south, and Israel to the southwest....
in 1840, an able demonstration of the continued strength of the Royal Navy. During this time, technological progress continued at the Admiralty, with the decision to adapt Francis Pettit Smith
Francis Pettit Smith
Sir Francis Pettit Smith was an English inventor and, along with Frédéric Sauvage and John Ericsson, one of a number of people with a claim to having been the inventor of the screw propeller...
's screw propeller
Propeller
A propeller is a type of fan that transmits power by converting rotational motion into thrust. A pressure difference is produced between the forward and rear surfaces of the airfoil-shaped blade, and a fluid is accelerated behind the blade. Propeller dynamics can be modeled by both Bernoulli's...
, and the new battleship designs of Sir William Symonds
William Symonds
Sir William Symonds FRS was "Surveyor of the Navy" in the Royal Navy from 9 June 1832 to October 1847, and took part in the naval reforms instituted by the Whig First Lord of the Admiralty Sir James Robert George Graham in 1832.-Early life:He was the second son...
in 1841. During his tenure on the Board, Adam was promoted to vice admiral
Vice Admiral
Vice admiral is a senior naval rank of a three-star flag officer, which is equivalent to lieutenant general in the other uniformed services. A vice admiral is typically senior to a rear admiral and junior to an admiral...
on 10 January 1837.
After leaving the Board, Adam resumed a naval command. From 17 August 1841 until 27 December 1844, he was commander-in-chief of the North America and West Indies Station, aboard (flag-captain John Elphinstone Erskine). On 24 July 1846, soon after the reappointment of Lord Auckland as First Lord of the Admiralty, he became First Naval Lord for the third and last time. He retired the next year, on 20 July 1847, to become Governor of Greenwich Hospital, and was promoted admiral
Admiral
Admiral is the rank, or part of the name of the ranks, of the highest naval officers. It is usually considered a full admiral and above vice admiral and below admiral of the fleet . It is usually abbreviated to "Adm" or "ADM"...
on 8 January 1848. Adam died at Greenwich on 16 September 1853.
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