John Wells (Royal Navy officer)

John Wells was born the son of Sarah Wells, the mistress of Rear-Admiral Augustus Keppel, in 1763.{{sfnp|Smith|1890|p=149}}{{sfnp|Clowes|1900|p=39}} Wells' father may have been Keppel or his mother's previous partner, "a low fellow".{{sfnp|Smith|1890|p=149}}{{sfnp|Town and Country Magazine|1771|p=459}} Wells was sent to boarding school in Richmond as a child. At some period in his early life he followed Keppel into a career in the Royal Navy.{{sfnp|Marshall|1823a|p=279}}

Wells fought at the Battle of Ushant on 27 July 1778 under Keppel, and was promoted to lieutenant on 22 July 1779, having presumably served for some time as a midshipman.{{sfnp|Urban|1842|p=554}}{{sfnp|Keppel|1842|pp=51, 59}} With the American Revolutionary War drawing to a close, Wells was promoted to commander on 1 June 1782 and in September was given command of the sloop HMS Raven on the Leeward Islands Station.{{sfnp|Urban|1842|p=554}} On 7 January 1783 Raven was taken by the French frigates Nymphe and Concorde while sailing off Montserrat, and Wells was captured.{{refn|While John Marshall originally recorded Wells as commanding the sloop HMS Wasp for a period after Raven, a later correction notes that this was in fact the ship of Commander John Hills and not Wells.{{sfnp|Marshall|1825|p=564}}|group=Note}}{{sfnp|Marshall|1823a|p=279}}{{sfnp|Schomberg|2015|p=45}}{{sfnp|Winfield|2007|p=1331}}

Wells' period of captivity was only short, and on 1 March 1783 he was promoted to captain. His first command was the frigate HMS Boreas on the Jamaica Station, which he was given in May. He paid her off in November but recommissioned her again later in the same month. He left Boreas in March 1784 when Captain Horatio Nelson assumed command.{{sfnp|Marshall|1823a|p=279}}{{sfnp|Winfield|2007|p=1086}} His next command came in February 1797 when he was given the newly commissioned ship of the line HMS Lancaster upon her conversion from an East Indiaman.{{refn|John Marshall states that Wells commanded the ship of the line HMS Defence between 1794 and 1797 but he mistakes Wells for Captain Thomas Wells.{{sfnp|Winfield|2007|p=333}}|group=Note}} Lancaster was sent to join the North Sea Fleet of Admiral Adam Duncan and was caught in the Nore Mutiny while fitting out.{{sfnp|Winfield|2008|p=262}} Lancaster was at the time anchored in Long Reach, near Gravesend, but despite not being at the Nore chose to support the mutineers there by following suit on 27 May.{{sfnp|MacDougall|2011|p=176}}{{sfnp|Glasco|2001|p=478}} To escape the mutiny Wells climbed through one of Lancaster{{'}}s gunports with the aid of two watermen.{{sfnp|Earle|2010|p=56}} The crew began to regret their decision to mutiny and on 6 June Wells went on board and accepted their surrender in return for a full pardon for their actions.{{sfnp|Glasco|2001|p=538}}

File:Thomas Whitcombe (c.1752-1824) - The Battle of Camperdown - N01659 - National Gallery.jpg

Having returned to Duncan's fleet, Wells fought in Lancaster at the Battle of Camperdown on 11 October where the British fleet defeated their Dutch opponent. Lancaster fought in the starboard line of British ships and had three men killed and another eighteen wounded in the battle.{{sfnp|Marshall|1823a|p=279}}{{sfnp|Clowes|1899|p=326}} She was one of three British ships to attack the leading ships of the Dutch fleet and Wells then had her engage the ship of the line Beschermer before moving down the line of battle to assist other British vessels in their fights.Phillips, [http://www.ageofnelson.org/MichaelPhillips/info.php?ref=1292 Lancaster (64) (1797)]. Michael Phillips' Ships of the Old Navy. Retrieved 9 September 2021. Despite being criticized for his conduct during the battle, Wells received the Naval Gold Medal and participated in the procession that saw the captured Dutch ship's colours hung in St Paul's Cathedral. Lancaster transferred to serve on the Irish Station in 1798 before going in for a refit in April 1799. Wells stayed in command of Lancaster until the refit was completed in May, at which point he handed over command and left the ship. He did not serve at sea again.{{sfnp|Marshall|1823a|p=279}}{{sfnp|Winfield|2008|p=262}}{{sfnp|United Service Magazine|1837|p=147}}

By seniority Wells was promoted to rear-admiral on 9 November 1805, vice-admiral on 31 July 1810, and admiral on 19 July 1821.{{refn|Full dates of flag rank: Rear-admiral of the blue on 9 November 1805, rear-admiral of the white 28 April 1808, rear-admiral of the red 25 October 1809, vice-admiral of the blue 31 July 1810, vice-admiral of the white 12 August 1812, vice-admiral of the red 4 June 1814, admiral of the blue 19 July 1821, admiral of the white 22 July 1830, admiral of the red 10 January 1837.{{sfnp|Syrett|DiNardo|1994|p=463}}|group=Note}} He was knighted as a Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath on 20 May 1820 as part of the celebrations leading up to George IV's coronation.{{sfnp|Marshall|1823a|p=279}}{{sfnp|Marshall|1823b|p=116}} He was advanced to Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath on 29 October 1834, after the death of Admiral Sir Benjamin Hallowell Carew left that position in the Order vacant.{{sfnp|Syrett|DiNardo|1994|p=463}}{{cite news |author= |date=6 February 1835 |title=Death of Admiral Sir John Wells |work=Carlisle Journal |location=Carlisle, Scotland|page=3}}

Wells died at Belmore on 19 November 1841 at the age of seventy-eight. He was buried at St Margaret's Church, Rottingdean.{{sfnp|Syrett|DiNardo|1994|p=463}}{{sfnp|Urban|1842|p=554}} Upon his death Wells was the fifth-most senior admiral in the Royal Navy.{{cite news |author= |date=4 December 1841 |title=The Courier|work=The Hobart Town Courier |location=Hobart, Tasmania|page=2}} The explorer Captain George Vancouver named Wells Passage after him in 1792.{{sfnp|Middleton|1969|pp=222–223}}

Wells married Jane Dealty of Rottingdean, Sussex, on 29 April 1815.{{sfnp|Marshall|1823a|p=279}} Together they purchased the house of Belmore near Cuckfield, in October 1825.{{sfnp|Salzman|1940|p=76}} This was done with the wealth of his wife; Wells relied on his Royal Navy half pay in retirement and held no property before his marriage. She died at Worthing on 30 April 1844, and the couple having no children, their wealth and estates were left to Jane's sister Elizabeth.{{sfnp|Urban|1844|p=668}}{{sfnp|Pollock|1907|pp=652–658}}

{{reflist|group=Note}}

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{{refbegin}}

• {{cite book |first=William Laird|last=Clowes|title=The Royal Navy, a History from the Earliest Times to the Present|volume=4|year=1899|location=London|publisher=Sampson Low, Marston and Company}}
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• {{cite book |first=James|last=Earle|title=Commodore Squib|year=2010|location=Newcastle upon Tyne|publisher=Cambridge Scholars Publishing|isbn=978-1-4438-1770-7}}
• {{cite thesis |last=Glasco |first=Jeffery Duane |date=2001 |title="We are a neglected set", Masculinity, Mutiny, and Revolution in the Royal Navy of 1797 |type=PhD }}
• {{cite book |first=Thomas|last=Keppel|title=The Life of Augustus, Viscount Keppel|year=1842|volume=2|location=London|publisher=Henry Colburn}}
• {{cite book |first=Philip|last=MacDougall|chapter=Reporting the Mutinies in the Provincial Press|title=The Naval Mutinies of 1797|pages=161–178|editor1=Ann Veronica Coats|editor2=Philip MacDougall|year=2011|location=Woodbridge|publisher=Boydell Press|isbn= 978-1-84383-669-8}}
• {{cite RNB1823 |wstitle=Knowles, Charles Henry |volume=1 |part=1 |pages=113–116|year=1823b}}
• {{cite RNB1823 |wstitle=Wells, John |volume=1 |part=1 |page=279|year=1823a}}
• {{cite RNB1823 |wstitle=Epworth, Farmery Predam |volume=2 |part=2 |page=561–564|year=1825}}
• {{cite book |first=Lynn|last=Middleton|title=Place Names of the Pacific Northwest Coast|year=1969|location=Victoria, British Columbia|publisher=Elldee Publishing Company}}
• {{cite book |first=Sir Frederick|last=Pollock|title=The Revised Reports, being a Republication of Such Cases in the English Courts of Common Law and Equity, from the Year 1785, as are still of Practical Utility|year=1907|location=London|publisher=Sweet and Maxwell}}
• {{cite book |first=L. F.|last=Salzman|title=A History of the County of Sussex|volume=7|year=1940|location=London|publisher=Victoria County History}}
• {{cite book |first=Isaac|last=Schomberg|title=Naval Chronology|year=2015|volume=5|location=Cambridge|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=9781139878500}}
• {{cite book |first=William|last=Smith|title=Old Yorkshire|year=1890|location=London|publisher=Longmans, Green & Co.}}
• {{cite book |first1=David|last1=Syrett|first2=R.L.|last2=DiNardo|title=The Commissioned Sea Officers of the Royal Navy 1660-1815 |location=Aldershot|publisher=Scholar Press |year=1994|isbn=1-85928-122-2}}
• {{cite book |first=Sylvanus|last=Urban|title=The Gentleman's Magazine|volume=17|year=1842|location=London|publisher=William Pickering; John Bowyer Nichols and Son}}
• {{cite book |first=Sylvanus|last=Urban|title=The Gentleman's Magazine|volume=21|year=1844|location=London|publisher=William Pickering; John Bowyer Nichols and Son}}
• {{cite book |year=1837|title=The United Service Magazine|volume=2|location=London|publisher=Henry Colburn|ref={{harvid|United Service Magazine|1837}}}}
• {{cite book |title=The Town and Country Magazine, September 1771|year=1771|location=London|publisher=A. Hamilton|ref={{harvid|Town and Country Magazine|1771}}}}
• {{cite book |first=Rif|last=Winfield |title=British Warships in the Age of Sail 1714–1792: Design, Construction, Careers and Fates |location=London |publisher=Pen & Sword |year=2007 |isbn=978-1-84415-700-6}}
• {{cite book |first=Rif|last=Winfield |title=British Warships in the Age of Sail 1793–1817: Design, Construction, Careers and Fates|location=London|publisher=Seaforth|year=2008|isbn=978-1-86176-246-7}}

{{refend}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Wells, John}}

Category:Royal Navy admirals

Category:Royal Navy personnel of the American Revolutionary War

Category:Royal Navy personnel of the French Revolutionary Wars

Category:Knights Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath

Category:1763 births

Category:1841 deaths