Later Life and Legacy
Vidal was promoted to rear-admiral on 27 January 1851, and vice-admiral on 17 June 1859. He had married Sarah Antoinette, daughter of Henry Veitch, the Consul General of Madeira, in October 1839 and had two sons, Owen Alexander (b. 1841) and Beaufort Henry (b. 1842). Following his wife's death in 1843, Vidal emigrated to Canada, where he joined his eldest brother Richard Emeric Vidal in the founding of Sarnia, Ontario. He died at Clifton, Bristol on 5 February 1863, aged 73.
The survey ship HMS Vidal, launched in 1951, was named in his honour. In 1955 a party from HMS Vidal were landed on Rockall to claim it as part of the United Kingdom, thus claiming the islet that Alexander Vidal had first surveyed over a hundred years before.
Read more about this topic: Alexander Thomas Emeric Vidal
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