Charles Napier (Royal Navy Officer) - Marriage and Family

Marriage and Family

At the end of the war Napier was made a Companion of the Bath (4 June 1815). He married Frances Elizabeth Elers, née Younghusband, generally referred to as Eliza, whom he had known and loved in Edinburgh while still a teenager. In the meantime Eliza had married a Lieutenant Edward Elers, RN and been widowed. She had four children whom Napier adopted as his own. Of these the second son, Charles Elers Napier, became a naval officer. The eldest, Edward Elers Napier, entered the army, rising to the rank of Major-General: he also wrote books of travel and reminiscence, as well as the authoritative biography of his stepfather. Frances also gave Napier two children of his own, a son born in Rome and a daughter born by Lake Geneva. The son, Charles, died as a result of an accident aged five. The first years of his leisure Napier spent in Italy, Switzerland (where he briefly took up farming), and in Paris. He had inherited considerable wealth from his mother's side of the family and spent it freely.