Barrington Reynolds - Early Career

Early Career

Barrington Reynolds was the second son of Captain Robert Carthew Reynolds, a successful and long-serving Royal Navy officer who had once served under Samuel Barrington who is probably the origin of Barrington's Christian name. Like his elder brother, Barrington Reynolds had been born at the family seat in Penair, near Truro, Cornwall, but aged only nine he was brought onto his father's ship the frigate HMS Amazon for service as a captain's servant. Britain was engaged at this time in the French Revolutionary Wars and Amazon was attached to the squadron under Sir Edward Pellew which harassed French shipping along the Biscay Coast. In February 1797, Amazon and Pellew's ship HMS Indefatigable engaged the much larger French ship of the line Droits de l'Homme in a storm off Brest. During the engagement, skilful manoeuvering by the British drove the French ship onto rocks with the loss of hundreds of lives. Amazon too was wrecked, but Captain Reynolds succeeded in beaching her rather than running her onto rocks and as result all but six of her crew survived to become prisoners of war.

Barrington Reynolds was released with his father a year later and returned to service on HMS Pomone, before transferring to Indefatigable as a midshipman, his first commission away from his father. When Pellew moved to HMS Impetueux he took the young Reynolds with him and the midshipman gained combat experience in several raiding operations on the French coast under the command of Lieutenant John Pilfold. Late in 1800 Reynolds briefly rejoined his father in HMS Orion before being promoted lieutenant on HMS Courageux he soon moved to HMS Hussar and later transferred again, to the frigate HMS Niobe in which he remained for the next five years until 1808. In 1804 his elder brother, Lieutenant Robert Reynolds, was killed in action off Martinique.