Walter Stirling

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"Sir Walter Stirling of Faskine, Commander in Chief at the Nore, 1781. - d. 1786" by James Northcote.

Admiral Sir Walter Stirling (18 May 1718–24 November 1786) was an admiral in the Royal Navy.

Born in 1718, Walter Stirling entered the Royal Navy. He was made "The Regulating Captain of the Impress at the Tower". On 30 October 1753 he married Dorothy Willing, the daughter of a Philadelphia merchant. According to family stories, he persuaded the family of Horatio Nelson to let Horatio join the navy, and he lost the opportunity to be appointed Governor of Halifax as he was visiting his wife in Scotland when the offer came in. In 1780 he was captain of the Gibralter, and was present when Admiral George Rodney captured the island of Sint Eustatius from the Dutch during the Fourth Anglo-Dutch War. Selected to take home dispatches, he was knighted on arrival. In 1782 he appointed Commander-in-Chief at the Nore. When King George III inspected Stirling's ships, he was so impressed that he offered to make Stirling a baronet. Stirling declined, but his eldest son, also named Walter, later claimed the title, becoming Walter Stirling, 1st Baronet of Faskine. He died in London in November 1786. His second surviving son, Charles, also became an admiral. A grandson by his daughter Anne was James Stirling, first Governor of Western Australia, and himself an admiral in later life.

[edit] References

• Statham-Drew, Pamela (2003). James Stirling: Admiral and Founding Governor of Western Australia. Nedlands, Western Australia: University of Western Australia Press. ISBN 0-85564-170-3. 

[edit] Further reading

The following sources were not consulted in the writing of this article:

• Stirling, T. W. (1933). The Stirlings of Cadder: An account of the Original Family of that Name and of The Family of the STIRLINGS OF DRUMPELLIER With which the Representation of the Ancient House of Cadder now lies. St Andrews University Press.