Lot 80: EDWARD LEVESON GOWER - British naval officer

Rear-Admiral Edward Leveson-Gower (1776-1853) British naval officer, the son of Admiral The Hon. John Leveson-Gower and Frances Boscawen. He commanded the frigate Prompt [1795], and the frigate Castor [1798] until appointed to Pomone in January 1801. In her he took part in the capture of Carrere on August 3, 1801, and the destruction of Bravoure and the recapture of Success on September 2,1801, before she struck a rock off St Aubin's Bay and sank on 23 September 1801. He was given command of the frigate Shannon upon her launch in September 1803. While attached to the Channel Fleet, Shannon was lost on 10 December 1803 when she ran aground in a gale off Barfleur. Leveson-Gower was captured and spent over three years as a prisoner of war before returning to England, where he was honourably acquitted by a court martial for the loss of his ship. He was returned for Truro in the election of November 1806, and for Mitchell in May 1807 by Viscount Falmouth, in the Government interest, but resigned the seat shortly afterwards, taking the Chiltern Hundreds in July. Leveson-Gower commanded Elizabeth from 1811, and was serving in the Adriatic in 1813, when in late April, the boats of Elizabeth and Eagle attacked a convoy of seven merchant vessels off the River Po, capturing four, and driving the other three ashore. Of these one was brought off and another destroyed, while under fire from a shore battery, two schooners and three gun-boats. Leveson-Gower was promoted to rear admiral in 1814 and resigned his commission in 1821. Offered here is a letter signed, 1802, concerning transfer of stores from Levenson Gowers ship off Lymmington to the storekeeper at Portsmouth Dockyard. Approx. 12.5 x 8 in. Condition: edges all around are faulty; age toned overall.

edges all around are faulty; age toned overall