Early Life
He was the son of Admiral Sir Phipps Hornby, elder brother of James John Hornby, the first cousin and brother-in-law of Edward Stanley, 13th Earl of Derby, by a daughter of Lieutenant-General Burgoyne, commonly distinguished as "Saratoga" Burgoyne.
At the age of twelve he was sent to sea in the flagship of Sir Robert Stopford, with whom he saw the capture of Acre in November 1840. He afterwards served in the flagship of Rear-Admiral Josceline Percy at the Cape of Good Hope, was flag-lieutenant to his father in the Pacific, and came home as a commander. When the ministry of Edward Smith-Stanley, 14th Earl of Derby, fell in December 1852, young Hornby was promoted to be captain. Early in 1853 he married, and as the Derby connexion put him out of favour with ministry of George Hamilton-Gordon, 4th Earl of Aberdeen, and especially with Sir James Graham, the First Lord of the Admiralty, he settled down in Sussex as manager of his father's property.
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