Edward Blanckley

Captain Edward Blanckley (c. 1790 – 4 May 1845) was a Royal Navy officer, and director of Kollmann's Railway, Locomotive and Carriage improvement company. His first wife, Harriet Matcham, was the niece of Horatio Nelson, 1st Viscount Nelson. Early life Edward Blanckley was born in Mahón, Menorca, Spain in about 1790 where his father, Henry Stanyford Blanckley, was formally appointed British Consul to Majorca, Menorca and Ibiza in the year of Edward's birth. Edward had three older living siblings: Ann, Henry Stanyford and Maria. Edward Blanckley's mother, Mary née Rogers died, following a long illness, in the spa resort of Bristol Hotwells on 10 March 1798. His father remarried Mary Richards in Sulham, Berkshire, England on 13 March 1800, resulting in Edward having two younger half-sisters, Elizabeth (who later authored Six Years Residence in Algiers, a biographical account of their father's time as British Consul to Algiers,) and Henrietta. Increasing Spanish hostility towards Britain during the Napoleonic Wars resulted in the Spanish governor of Menorca imposing increasingly strict sanctions on the Blanckley family, first by issuing a public order forbidding native families to visit or communicate with them, then by placing Edward's father, Henry Stanyford Blanckley, under house arrest. The guards posted at their front door stabbed the family's butler in the arm with a bayonet when they misidentified him as Edward's father. Edward joined the Royal Navy as midshipman on 17 January 1805 shortly before his family evacuated Menorca in a "wretched boat". Early Naval Career Edward Blanckley first joined the Royal Navy on 17 January 1805 as a midshipman on the 54-gun under Captain Charles Marsh Schomberg. Edward remained as midshipman serving in the Mediterranean for the next nine years. He joined HMS Pylades in July 1807 and the 54-gun in December 1808, both under the commanded of Captain George Miller Bligh. He transferred to the 16-gun HMS Wizard under Captain Abel Ferris in May 1809. He joined the 28-gun HMS Mercury in October 1809, and the 38-gun HMS Imperieuse in March 1810, both under Captain Henry Duncan. According to his entry in A Naval Biographical Dictionary: "He assisted, on 2 Nov.