Royal Navy
Arthur Wakefield was born in Essex near London, a son of Edward Wakefield (1774-1854) and Susanna Crash (1767–1816); his other brothers were William Hayward Wakefield and Felix Wakefield.
He joined the Royal Navy at age eleven. He saw action in the Dutch East Indies, and was part of the force that captured and burnt Washington, D.C. during the War of 1812. He took part in the bombardment of Algiers. In the post-Napoleonic period he was stationed off South America, involved in diplomatic duties during the various wars of independence. He then spent several years off the coast of West Africa as part of the flotilla engaged in the suppression of the slave trade. He also saw duty in the North Atlantic, the West Indies and the Mediterranean. He was eventually given command of his own ship, the steam frigate Rhadamanthus. However, in 1837 he was passed over for promotion, so, recognizing that his career was going nowhere, he resigned from the Navy in 1841.
Read more about this topic: Arthur Wakefield
Famous quotes containing the words royal and/or navy:
“When other helpers fail and comforts flee, when the senses decay and the mind moves in a narrower and narrower circle, when the grasshopper is a burden and the postman brings no letters, and even the Royal Family is no longer quite what it was, an obituary column stands fast.”
—Sylvia Townsend Warner (1893–1978)
“People run away from the name subsidy. It is a subsidy. I am not afraid to call it so. It is paid for the purpose of giving a merchant marine to the whole country so that the trade of the whole country will be benefitted thereby, and the men running the ships will of course make a reasonable profit.... Unless we have a merchant marine, our navy if called upon for offensive or defensive work is going to be most defective.”
—William Howard Taft (1857–1930)