William Penn (admiral)
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Sir William Penn (April 23, 1621 – September 16, 1670) was an English admiral, and the father of William Penn, founder of the colony of Pennsylvania. The state of Pennsylvania is named in his honor (and not, as is often supposed, in honor of his son, the Quaker leader.)
Penn was born in St. Thomas Parish, Bristol. In the First Anglo-Dutch War, he served in the navy of the Commonwealth of England, commanding squadrons at the battles of the Kentish Knock (1652), Portland, the Gabbard and Scheveningen (1653).
In 1655 he commanded the fleet that attacked La Hispaniola and seized Jamaica for the Commonwealth regime.
At the Restoration he was sent in the Naseby (later the Royal Charles) to fetch king Charles II over to England.
In the Second Anglo-Dutch War he was captain of the fleet at the Battle of Lowestoft in 1665 under James Stuart, Duke of York.
The key source for the adult life of Penn is the Diary of his nextdoor neighbour Samuel Pepys. In 1660 Penn was appointed a Commissioner of the Navy Board where he worked with Pepys, Clerk of the Acts to the Navy Board.
Like Pepys and the Earl of Sandwich (Pepys' patron at the Navy Board) Penn was a "moderate" Roundhead who had succeeded in maintaining his position at the Restoration. Unsurprisingly, Penn appears several times in Pepys diary most vividly in an entry for 1665 when we read,
"At night home and up to the leads [roof], were contrary to expectation driven down again with a stinke by Sir W. Pen's shying of a shitten pot in their house of office"
A native of the West Country Sir William Penn is buried in the church of St. Mary Redcliffe in Bristol. His helm and half-armour are hung on the wall, together with the tattered banners of the Dutch ships that he captured in battle.
