Admiral Sir John Montague

(This memorial can be found high up on the left side of the Lackham Aisle)

John Montagu was born to James Montagu III and Elizabeth Isles. The family lived in Lackham hence his memorial is found in the Lackham aisle of the church.

He was the 4th son born to the Family and would be baptised in Lacock Church in November 1719. Little is known of his early years, but he grew up in times when a new superpower was rising to the fore. England, finally united and stable following the near-continuous instability of the previous century, had begun to emerge as a true colonial power. There was no end of conflict and adventure to intrigue the young nobles of the New Kingdom of Britain.

Montagu entered the Royal Navy Academy in Portsmouth in August 1733. He would serve as a midshipman aboard several vessels in the Channel, including Captain James Poole’s Yarmouth, Captain Henry Medley’s Dreadnought, and the Dragon under Captain Curtis Barnett. It was while onboard HMS Dragon that he would get his first taste of Adventure as the ship was deployed to the Mediterranean Squadron. He would transfer again later onto HMS Dolphin.

Not long after his arrival in the Mediterranean, a dark cloud would settle over Europe. In 1740, Charles VI, Emperor of Austria, died. The Houses of Habsburg and Bourbon once again threw their respective nations and their allies into the fray for European dominance. Britain’s alliance with Austria and the Netherlands was formed to repel the alliance of Prussia, Spain, Sweden, and France. The war would see over three-quarters of a million dead by its end. It would witness the waning of Dutch power and the rise of Prussia as a mainstay continental power.

But wars are good for the careers of aspiring naval heroes, and Montagu would soon find himself transferred to HMS Buckingham and, less than a year later, he would pass his examination for Lieutenant at the age of 21.

His first major action would come. A combined French and Spanish Fleet formed up at the French Naval port of Toulon. Their intentions were to escape the British blockade and then run for the Straits of Gibraltar and sail for Brest to make preparations ahead of a French invasion of England.

What followed was a debacle of the worst kind. The Franco-Spanish fleet slipped out to sea, and Admiral Thomas Mathews led the Three British Formations in pursuit. Montagu found himself in the Rear formation under Vice Admiral Lestock on HMS Neptune. The next day, the British fleet caught up with the French and Spanish and began to overtake the rear of their formation. Due to errors in signalling from Mathews’ flagship, HMS Namur, contradictory instructions were issued along the battleline, and many British captains hesitated, causing their formation to become confused. Annoyed by the delay in the rear formation getting into action, Admiral Mathews sent a signal for the rear formation to increase speed. Lestock dithered and hesitated, not wanting to engage with his ships out of formation. This left HMS Namur and her escorts unsupported; HMS Malborough came charging to the flagship’s aid, an act of heroic bravery that cost Captain James Cornwell his life, though his ship was torn up around him; she remained afloat and would escape the battle.

The Aftermath would see Mathews withdraw to Menorca, seeding control of the western Mediterranean in the short term. It had not gone well for the Spanish and French either. The Spanish complained that the French had cost them a great victory, and the choices of King Phillip of Spain would damage their alliance and lead to the withdrawal of the plans to sail for the Channel.

The Battle had seen systemic failures in command on the English side, and the judgment of England was borne out. Seven Captains were court-martialled and cashiered from the Navy for failing to do their utmost in the battle. Admiral Mathews would face a court-martial himself as well as Vice Admiral Lestock. Mathews was found at fault for his poor organisation of the fleet and not engaging when conditions were favourable; his courage was not questioned; his flag captain had been killed during Namur’s heroic stand. Mathews was officially dismissed in 1747.

Lestock, however, was acquitted despite having disobeyed his commander’s orders; the decision was largely political. Lestock had good connections, but he earned the ire of a young lieutenant called as a witness at his court-martial, the young man who had stood at his station on the quarterdeck of the Buckingham and watched everything. Montagu condemned his senior for failing to engage when ordered. In cross-examination, Lestock claimed that Montagu was only speaking with the instructions of Buckingham’s Captain. Montagu retorted, stating that “I never ask any man’s opinion but my own. I always considered Vice-Admiral Lestock’s conduct on that day unlike an officer’s and always said so.”

Montagu’s opinion was not isolated; all of England asked why Mathews had been condemned when he fought, and Lestock had been acquitted when he had not. After this, changes in regulations would require all Captains to do their utmost and would specifically lay out the penalty for failure to engage the enemy. Further changes granted the Navy Courts greater autonomy, which would prevent political interference. These changes would create a culture unlike any other the world had seen, and Montagu would see it happen.

On the 2nd of March 1745, he was promoted to commander and assigned his own ship, the newly commissioned HMS Hinchingbrooke. He would serve in the Channel squadron and took several merchant ships as prizes.

A year later, he was posted, attaining the rank of Captain; he would briefly command HMS Rose before moving onto the frigate HMS Ambuscade. Here, he would fight his first single-ship duel. While on patrol, he encountered the Calais Privateer St. Nicholas after a short engagement, carried the vessel, and returned to Portsmouth with her as a prize.

In 1747, he was still in command of HMS Ambuscade and was pulling out of Plymouth to join Vice Admiral Anson’s Fleet when an onboard accident caused her to lose her mast and run aground. Montagu managed to keep in control of the situation and waited five hours for the swell to rise enough to edge her out of harm’s way. Returning to port for repairs.

Three months later, Captain Montagu would take part in the Battle of Cape Finisterre. The French had attempted to keep their supply routes open, and on the 14th of May, Admiral Anson’s fleet made contact with a large French convoy of over 30 ships. Despite being outnumbered, Anson’s fleet was mostly made up of ships of the line, outgunning the French by five to one. The Convoy attempted to flee and was run down by the British. This time, British Commanders did not hesitate. Anson ordered a general pursuit, and they quickly overwhelmed the French Convoy escorts, causing the merchant ships to scatter.

Montagu would return to England at the end of hostilities, bid his beloved Ambuscade farewell, transfer to HMS Greenwich, then to HMS Bristol, and sail for Portugal. Bristol would be paid off in 1748, and he would return to England just in time to marry Sophia Wroughton on the 2nd of December that year. The Couple would have four sons and a daughter.

In 1749, orders would come for him to take command of the Gaudship HMS Kent that was to be re-armed and given duties protecting Portsmouth. Midway through outfitting, he was ordered to pack up and move to HMS Mermaid, which departed for the 13 Colonies carrying silver to repay the expenses incurred by the colonial authorities during the war.

In the same year, he was asked to sit on an important Court Martial, convened by Admiral Hawke, which concerned the Mutiny on HMS Chesterfield. An attempt had been made by the First Lieutenant to steal the ship and abandon his Captain and other officers ashore in Ghana. The mutiny had only been stopped by the actions of the Boatswain and a few other sailors. They launched a counter-mutiny, brought the ship back to port, and returned it to British authorities. The Court sentenced the ringleaders to death and many of the crew who were involved to transportation.

The next year would see Montagu sitting on another court-martial board for the trial of Admiral Griffin, following failures in command during the war. The Court ruled him guilty of negligence in the face of the enemy, and he was dismissed from the Navy. The following year, Montagu was on half pay; peace was truly a naval officer’s worst nightmare, and most of the navy found themselves at home waiting for the next war. None would have to wait long.

Following a quiet few years in 1755, he was summoned back to the Admiralty; he was given command of HMS Elizabeth and dispatched to join Admiral Hawkes Grand Armada. Within a year, the largest conflict the world had ever seen broke out. The Seven Years’ War which would see conflict on every continent. The war would cement British dominance in India; it would also see the end of French and Spanish grand ambitions in North America. It would see a British Admiral accept the surrender of a Spanish cardinal acting as governor of the Philippines; George Washington, John Jarvis (Later Lord St Vincent), Sir Edward Pelliew, and many more would get their start in this titanic conflict.

Montagu would serve under Hawke and then transferred to HMS Monarch under Admiral Boscwan when he was given a rather unpleasant duty. In 1756, Admiral Byng was dispatched to Menorca to prevent an invasion. After an inconclusive battle, he withdrew, and the island was lost. A court-martial cleared him of cowardice but convicted him of “failing to do his utmost”. Captain Montagu was ordered to conduct the execution on Monarch and went through with it, supervising the confinement and firing squad that ended the Admiral’s life.

He wrote in his log: “These 24 hours very squally, with showers of wind and rain; Admiral Byng’s Co. as before; at 7 A.M. his Coffin came on board; at 10 A.M. all the Ships’ Boats, manned and armed, came to attend his Execution; hard gales, lowered down the lower yards: at noon all hands were called up to attend his execution; he was shot on the larboard side of the Quarter Deck by six Marines, attended by Lieut. Clark, the Marshal, and Mr. Muckings; these gentlemen went ashore after the execution was over.”

This event shaped every generation that came after; no longer could failures be written off like that of Vice Admiral Lestock; senior officers were supposed to do everything in their power to assure victory. You could lose, but you had to have done all you could to prevent it. A generation of naval officers would grow up with this in mind. Men like Nelson knew that if he failed to do his best, he could share this fate. The culture this inspired would shape the Royal Navy in ways that are hard to fathom. And the man charged with seeing this change through was John Montagu. But the tides of war wait for no man, and Montagu found himself at sea once more, this time in the Mediterranean. HMS Monarch had been ordered to link up with HMS Montagu, a slightly confusing coincidence. Together, the two ships joined the Squadron of Admiral Henry Osborn.

On the morning of the 28th of February 1758, the four ships of the line making up the Squadron spotted three French ships of the line attempting to run the blockader and enter the Atlantic. On spotting the British Squadron, the French admiral ordered his ships to scatter. HMS Monarch and HMS Montagu would assist in crippling one of the French ships before giving chase to the third, The Oriflamme, which would fight the two English ships until HMS Monarch succeeded in driving her ashore. The battle did much to re-establish the Royal Navy’s reputation following Bing’s execution.

Monarch would return to England later that year. Monatgu would leave her shortly after his return.

1759 would see Monatgu tour the Atlantic, commissioning the newly captured HMS Raisonnable for the Navy, then sailing her to the West Indies, before transferring to HMS Panther and escorting a Convoy to St Helena. He would then sail the aged HMS Terrible to be broken up in England.

In 1760, Montagu would take Command of HMS Newerk. He would sail to join Admiral Edward Boscawen’s fleet in Quiberon Bay and take one or two prizes before returning to port for a refit. During this refit, the crew took up cutlasses and fought over several evenings with crews from HMS Deptford and HMS Marlborough, despite an attempted intervention from the officers to put a stop to this; several men lost hands and arms, and over two dozen of them were hospitalised. Following her refit, HMS Newark would pull guard duty over the Downs through the winter and into the spring of the following year.

In April of 1761, he was transferred to HMS Princess Amelia and set out from St Helena bound for Plymouth; the voyage was aborted twice due to poor weather conditions. He finally made Plymouth after a month of delays and joined the blockade squadron at Brest. With the French unwilling to come out and challenge action, HMS Princess Amelia sailed to join Sir Edward Hawke’s fleet in the Bay of Biscay. While on station, a change in wind direction almost certainly saved the ship from a French fireship launched to disrupt the British squadron in the Basque Roads.

The Next year, Captain Montagu transferred to HMS Maganime and rejoined Admiral Hawke in Lisbon after a summer of continued operation in the Bay of Biscay. He was seconded to a task force led by HMS Ramillies under the newly appointed Vice Admiral Prince Edward, Duke of York and Albany, the King’s brother. Their mission was to sail for St Helena and attempt the interception of a five-strong squadron of French ships believed to be attempting a return to France from the South Atlantic. The search would be fruitless, and the next year would find Montagu back in the Bay of Biscay until the following year, when he would sail back to Portsmouth.

In 1763, the Seven Years’ War was basically at an end. Montagu would get bounced around a few more appointments, including the recommissioning of HMS Dragon as a guard ship after three years; he would transfer to Dragon’s sister ship, Bellona and do the same thing until July 1769.

A year later, he would be presented before the King at court and appointed Rear Admiral and made Commander-in-Chief in the Downs. Within a month of arriving at his new post, he would be abruptly transferred to take over from Commodore Gambia in Newfoundland and would sail for the Americas. The Voyage was not an entirely enjoyable one, as he suffered from stomach gout that raised concerns for his life and left him an invalid for several days, but soon he recovered and took his new post.

His arrival in the colonies could not have been worse timed; tensions had been rising in the Thirteen Colonies since the end of the Seven Years’ War, with arguments over taxes and representation. In March of 1770, an argument between a local boy and a British soldier had spiralled out of control and became what history would know as the Boston Massacre after British soldiers fired into a mob and killed between three and four hundred people. This would set in motion a chain of events leading to the American War of Independence.

In 1772, Montagu’s suppression of the illegal smuggling operations had been so successful that his officers believed it was unsafe to go ashore without escort.

That later year, on the 9th of June, the Schooner HMS Gaspee was in pursuit of a Colonial Packet ship when she ran aground. A small group of militia men, seeing the opportunity, rowed out to the stranded ship and boarded her in the middle of the night. After a struggle, the ship’s contents were searched, the crew forced to abandon her, and the ship was burnt. Montagu began his investigation by interviewing the crew of the Gaspee. After a month, he found a witness willing to identify the perpetrators, providing a list of likely suspects that matched the description he had received. He wrote to Governor Wanton of Rhode Island, requesting that these men be detained and investigated. Unfortunately, the witness was an indentured servant called Biggs.

The Governor made inquiries about Biggs and was told by the farm owners where he resided that Biggs had been present on the night in question, and the two other indentured workers supported the claim. The Governor, throughout the testimony, found that none of the conspirators was arrested. Montagu did not take the news well. In a letter to the Governor, he stated, “It is clear to me from many corroborating circumstances, that he is no imposter.” His protests fell on deaf ears. Frustrated, he wrote to the Admiralty on September 2nd, 1772, requesting a dozen Books of Instructions to be sent out to the officers under his command; he spelt out his reason in one of his letters: “that the young Gentlemen that are made officers may have no excuse for not knowing their duty.” Several of the new young gentlemen under his command were two of his sons, George and James, who would go on to rise under their father’s command and patronage.

On the 14th of April 1775, Sir Thomas Gage, Commander-in-Chief in North America, received orders to launch a pre-emptive strike against the American Patriots in Concord; unfortunately, the orders were leaked, and word reached the Americans at Lexington and Concord. British forces faced ready defences in the first Action of the American War of Independence. The Next ten months would be a busy time for Admiral Montagu as the Patriots laid siege to Boston under the command of a new Commander-in-Chief, General George Washington. As well as supporting Gage’s replacement, Admiral Howe. By August, American privateers began a campaign against Nova Scotia, attacking Merchant vessels and raiding the towns of Saint John, Yarmouth, and Charlottetown. On top of these commitments, Montagu decided to deploy several ships to relieve the beleaguered defenders of Quebec. A task force carrying one hundred and twenty soldiers’ supplies for the city under the Command of Captain John Hamilton on HMS Lizard successfully broke the siege and resupplied the garrison.

In February 1776, after four years and ten months of war on the Newfoundland station, he was promoted to Vice Admiral and appointed Commander-in-Chief and Lieutenant Governor of Newfoundland. This led to a small amount of friction as Admiral Howe, Commander-in-Chief North America, was Junior to Montagu and initially objected; however, his objections were overtaken by circumstances. Following the fall of Fort Ticonderoga, Washington began tightening the noose around Boston, leading to an amphibious evacuation and a withdrawal to Halifax. Montagu lent ships and personnel to the effort, then diverted ships under his command to Howe, allowing Howe to retreat and regroup.

With the British Counterattack into New York underway, Montagu returned to London with reports and dispatches informing the Admiralty of his growing concern about American Privateer operations led by the famous John Paul Jones, founder of the US Navy.

1777 was a quieter time, with the threat of privateers being the primary concern following the war’s move inland. Montagu would attend the King’s Fleet review in Spithead. In July, he returned to Newfoundland, learning soon after that the French had finally decided to intercede in the war. He moved immediately to occupy the Islands of St Pierre and Miquelon. Aware that a French squadron had disappeared into the Atlantic, he quickly confirmed that French and American vessels were gathering there in wait of the large squadron’s arrival; if allowed to join up, a substantial naval force would be operating in his back lines with a fortified base. This was an unacceptable possibility, so action was immediate; he detached Commodore John Evans to lead the force. Supporting the Commodore as his Flagship Captain was George Montagu, the Admiral’s eldest son.

After an uneventful voyage, they arrived at the Islands, and George Montagu went ashore to parley with the French Governor, requiring him to surrender. The governor was confused, as word of France’s entry into the war had not yet reached him, but with a paltry garrison he had few choices. After a little haggling over terms, the French garrison and governor were permitted to leave as long as they turned over all their provisions and stores on the island as well as any vessels intact.

In 1778, Montagu successfully foiled multiple attempts by American privateers and the French Navy to seize small towns along the Newfoundland Coast, but his governorship was coming to an end; he would exchange with Admiral Richard Edwards and depart Newfoundland.

In 1779, he would sit on a court-martial board himself. In the previous year, Admiral Augustus Keppel, aboard the brand-new HMS Victory, leading a British fleet, had encountered thirty French ships at Ushant. After some complex manoeuvres and faints the day before, at 6 am on July 27th 1778, the two fleets had met in battle. However, the engagement was inconclusive; Keppel’s second-in-command, Admiral Huge Palliser, at the tail end of the British line, had gotten confused by contradictory orders and engaged the head of the French line in a piecemeal fashion and took heavy damage. French gunnery had been on point, and most of Palliser’s ships had taken damage to their rigging, limiting their manoeuvrability. As Keppel’s centre formation and Vice Admiral Harland’s Front turned in pursuit, Palliser dithered, and his ships formed with his flagship rather than joining Keppel as they were ordered to. Montagu was ordered to sit on the board alongside Admiral Sir Thomas Pye. The Court Martial was immersed in politics as Keppel was a prominent member of the Whig party and Palliser a prominent Tory.

Montagu quickly established that cowardice was not in play here. Both men had fought and fought hard; witness testimony established that Keppel had been guilty of a failure of judgement but had not failed in his duty. Montagu pushed for acquittal and succeeded. Keppel was acquitted, and the charges were declared “Malicious and ill-founded.” Montagu would host Keppel at his home. Palliser would also avoid charges as his political supporters sent unsympathetic officers to sea, thereby stacking his jury in his own court-martial. Neither man would serve at sea again.

The Admiralty offered Montagu a command later that year, but he declined, attending Court instead and being promoted Admiral the following year.

Four years later. Keppel was promoted first lord of the Admiralty and offered Montagu the Commander-in-Chief position in Portsmouth. He held the position for two years before hauling down his flag for the last time, retiring in 1786. He would pass away in his home nine years later, on September the 7th, 1795.