Charles Napier (Royal Navy Officer)
Admiral Sir Charles John Napier KCB GOTE RN (6 March 1786 – 6 November 1860) was a Scottish naval officer whose sixty years in the Royal Navy included service in the Napoleonic Wars, Syrian War and the Crimean War, and a period commanding the Portuguese navy in the Liberal Wars. An innovator concerned with the development of iron ships, and an advocate of humane reform in the Royal Navy, he was also active in politics as a Liberal Member of Parliament and was probably the naval officer most widely known to the public in the early Victorian Era.
Napier was the second son of Captain Charles Napier, RN, and grandson of Francis, 6th Lord Napier; he was thus a direct descendant of the great mathematician John Napier. He was born at Merchiston Hall, near Falkirk, on 6 March 1786, and educated at the Royal High School, Edinburgh.
Read more about Charles Napier (Royal Navy Officer): French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, American War and The 'Hundred Days', Marriage and Family, Steam and Iron, Portugal, Syrian War, Parliament and Channel Fleet, Baltic Campaign, Retirement, Character, Works
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“As we try to change, we will discover within us a fierce struggle between our loyalty to that battle-scarred victim of his own childhood, our father, and the father we want to be. We must meet our childhood father at close range: get to know him, learn to forgive him, and somehow, go beyond him.”
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