Roger Curtis - Early Career

Early Career

Roger Curtis was born in 1746 to a gentleman farmer of Wiltshire, also named Roger Curtis, and his wife Christabella Blachford. In 1762 at 16, Curtis travelled to Portsmouth and joined the Royal Navy, becoming a midshipman aboard HMS Royal Sovereign in the final year of the Seven Years War. Curtis did not see any action before the Treaty of Paris in 1763, and was soon transferred aboard HMS Assistance for service off West Africa. Over the next six years, Curtis moved from Assistance to the guardship HMS Augusta at Portsmouth and then to the sloop HMS Gibraltar in Newfoundland. In 1769, Curtis joined the frigate HMS Venus under Samuel Barrington before moving to the ship of the line HMS Albion in which he was promoted to lieutenant.

Shortly after his promotion, Curtis joined the small brig HMS Otter in Newfoundland and there spent several years operating off the Labrador coastline, becoming very familiar with the local geography and the Inuit peoples of the region. In a report he wrote for Lord Dartmouth, Curtis opined that although the inland regions of Labrador were barren, the coast was an ideal place for a seasonal cod fishery. He also formed a good opinion of the native people, applauding their healthy and peaceful lifestyle. Curtis made numerous exploratory voyages along the Labrador coast and formed close links with the Inuit tribes and Moravian missionaries in the region. His notes and despatches were presented to the Royal Academy by Daines Barrington in 1774, although accusations later surfaced that many of his observations were plagiarised from the notes of a local officer, Captain George Cartwright.

During his time in Canadian waters, Curtis became friends with Governor Molyneux Shuldham who became Curtis' patron and in 1775 assisted his transfer into HMS Chatham off New York. The following year, with the American Revolutionary War underway, Curtis was promoted to commander and given the sloop HMS Senegal. Curtis performed well in his new command and a year later was again promoted after being noticed by Lord Howe. Howe made Curtis captain of his own flagship HMS Eagle, and the men became close friends.