George Johnstone Hope

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George Johnstone Hope
George Johnstone Hope
Born	6 July 1767 Scotland
Died	2 May 1818 London, England
Occupation	Royal Navy Admiral

Rear-Admiral Sir George Johnstone Hope, KCB (6 July 1767 - 2 May 1818) was a successful and efficient naval officer who served with distinction in the Royal Navy thought the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, including service at the Battle of Trafalgar in command of HMS Defence. A close personal friend of Admiral Nelson, he received many honours following the battle and later served as a Lord of the Admiralty.

Born the son of The Hon. Charles Hope-Vere and grandson of Charles Hope, 1st Earl of Hopetoun, Hope joined the navy at 13 in 1781 and spent much of his early career as a midshipman and then as a lieutenant^[1] serving on frigates, being given command ^[2] of his own sloop, the HMS Racehorse in 1790. At the outbreak of war he was serving in the sloop HMS Bulldog in the Mediterranean Sea, and conducted several convoys to the forces of Lord Hood, who was besigeing Toulon at the time. Later in the year he was promoted to the rank of Post Captain^[3] and given command of the large frigate HMS Romulus, in which he saw action against French ships off Genoa in 1795. In 1798 however whilst commanding HMS Alcmene, Hope made a serious faux pas, when he assumed Nelson would have called off his passage to Egypt in the face of poor weather. He accordingly took the frigates under his command back to Gibraltar, thus denying Nelson his scouts at a pivotal point in the campaign and earning a furious rebuke from his commander.

by dint of courageous effort, Hope regained Nelson's good graces the following year by capturing the French gunbrig Légère off Egypt and seizing dispatches intended for Napoleon before sailing to Naples and successfully evacuating the royal family in the face of a serious uprising which was eventually quelled by Nelson's personal intervention. By 1801 he was an experienced Mediterranean campigner, and in command of the frigate HMS Leda supported the successful amphibious landings which began the British invasion of Egypt. Following the Peace of Amiens, Hope was moved to the 74-gun ship of the line HMS Defence. He particpated in the chase of the French fleet across the Atlantic and the ensuing blockade of Cadiz, and thus on the morning of the 21 October 1805 found his ship at the rear of Collingwood's division.

Rear Admiral Sir George Johnstone Hope

The unfortunate position of his ship prevented Hope engaging with the enemy until the battle was two and a half hours old, but once within range, the Defence was heavily engaged, fighting with the former British ship Berwick and then the Spanish ship San Ildefenso whose surrender she recieevd after some hours of battle. Hope sensibly anchored both ships during the ensuing storm, and so his prize was one of only four captured ships to survive the following week of gales. During the action and storm, Defence suffered just 36 casualties, despite being heavily engaged during the close of the battle.

Following his action here, Hope continued to serve in the Defence, transferring to the Baltic Sea under Sir James Saumarez, where he remained until 1811 when he was made Rear-Admiral^[4] through seniority and good service. In 1812 he performed a special mission to rescue as much of the Russian fleet as could be saved from French invasion and bring it to Britain. The plan was never fully enacted due to the defeat of Napoleon, but for his continued excellent service, Hope was reqreded with a position as one of the Lords of the Admiralty, a post he retained and performed well at for the next six years, ending abruptly when he died suddenly whilst working late at the Admiralty one night in 1818.

During his life, Hope received many honours and fulfilled many positions, standing as an MP for East Grinstead and being inducted as a Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath ^[5], in addition to the sword of honour and gold meadal for his Trafalgar service and other accolades from his time at sea. he was buried in Westminster Abbey, where a large wall-mounted memorial remains to his memory although his tombstone has been removed to make way for later burials.