Lord Henry Paulet - Personal and Later Life

Personal and Later Life

Paulet was something of an eccentric. On one occasion, while his ship was moored at Spithead, he asked his admiral for permission to take leave to visit London. This was refused, with the comment that Paulet could travel as far on land as he could get in his barge. Thus challenged, Paulet loaded his barge onto a cart and went off to London anyway.

He became a Colonel of Royal Marines on 1 August 1811, and advanced to rear-admiral on 12 August 1812. He replaced William Johnstone Hope as one of the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty in 1813, holding the position until being forced to retire in 1816 due to ill health. On 2 January 1815, Paulet was appointed a Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath, and in 1819 was promoted to vice-admiral. On 26 October 1813, he married Anna-Maria Ravenscroft, with whom he had two sons and three daughters.

Increasingly ill during his last years from cancer, that it was believed had been brought on by a fall against a slide of one of the carronades aboard the Terrible, Paulet died on 28 January 1832 at his seat of Westhill Lodge, Tichfield, Hampshire. He was buried in the family vault at Amport on 3 February. His eldest son Henry Charles Paulet was created a Baronet in his honour in 1836 (see Paulet Baronets).