Robert Boyle-Walsingham

Captain Robert Boyle-Walsingham (March 1736 – 5 October 1780) was an Anglo-Irish Royal Navy officer and politician. He was killed in the Great Hurricane of 1780 while serving as a commodore onboard HMS Thunderer. Early life and family Robert Boyle was born in March 1736, the son of Henry Boyle, 1st Earl of Shannon, by his wife Henrietta, daughter of Charles Boyle, 2nd Earl of Burlington. His great-grandfather Roger Boyle, 1st Earl of Orrery had married Lady Margaret, daughter of Theophilus Howard, 2nd Earl of Suffolk; another daughter Lady Anne married Thomas Walsingham. Robert Boyle eventually succeeded to the estate of the Walsinghams' daughter Elizabeth, Lady Osborne (died 1733), and adopted the name Walsingham. On 17 July 1759 Boyle-Walsingham married Charlotte Hanbury Williams, the daughter of Sir Charles Hanbury Williams. Together the couple had two children; Richard (1762–1831) and Charlotte (1769–1831), who in 1806 successfully claimed the Barony of de Ros. Military career Boyle joined the Royal Navy on 22 January 1748, initially serving as an ordinary seaman on the 12-gun yacht HMS Dublin. On 3 June 1749 he transferred as an able seaman to the 44-gun frigate HMS Assurance, in which he was promoted to midshipman on 24 June 1751. Boyle continued in Assurance until the ship was wrecked on 24 April 1753. He then joined the 74-gun ship of the line HMS Cumberland on 24 September of the same year, before moving to the 60-gun fourth rate HMS Anson on 21 April 1754. He passed his examination for promotion to the rank of lieutenant on 16 November, having left Anson ten days earlier.