George Stuart

Lord George Stuart, CB (1 Mar 1780 – 19 February 1841 at Balls Park, Hertfordshire) was a Rear-Admiral of the Blue in the Royal Navy. Origin He was from a side-branch of the Stuart family, descended from the Scottish King Robert II. He was the seventh son of John Stuart, 1st Marquess of Bute and his wife Charlotte Jane. He received the courtesy title Lord Stuart after his father became the first Marquess of Bute in 1796. Among his brothers were Charles Stuart, who died in 1796 aboard HMS Leda and Captain William Stuart RN. Life After attending Eton College, he joined the Royal Navy in November 1793 as a midshipman. In 1795 he took part in the second voyage of under Captain William Robert Broughton, during which they went in search of George Vancouver to the Pacific coast of North America and later to Japan and Macau. After the wreck of HMS Providence on a coral reef at Miyako-jima, Stuart and 29 seamen finally returned to Great Britain on board an East Indiaman in 1799. He was promoted to lieutenant in 1800 and commander in 1802. On 3 March 1804, he was appointed captain and took command of 44-gun frigate HMS Sheerness in the Indian Ocean; he was not aboard Sheerness when she sank in a heavy storm off Trincomalee on 7 January 1805. On 8 April 1806 as commander of the frigate HMS Duncan he captured the French privateer Île de France in the North Sea.