Michael Seymour

Biography

In August and September 1846 Michael Seymour, captain of a British ship of the line, travelled through Quebec and Ontario and made sixteen drawings. Twelve of them were later acquired by the Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec, and four are held by Library and Archives Canada.

Of the admiral’s artistic side far less is known than of his naval one.

He was the third son of Admiral Sir Michael Seymour, 1st Baronet, who had distinguished himself in the Napoleonic Wars. In 1813, at the age of eleven, he joined the Royal Navy and served first in the ship of the line HMS Hannibal, which his father commanded. From 1816 to 1818 he studied at the Royal Naval College in Portsmouth.

Promotion came quickly: lieutenant in 1822, commander in 1824, captain in 1826. He commanded the brig HMS Cameleon and the frigates HMS Menai and HMS Volage; in the Volage he spent two years cruising off the coast of South Africa. From 1833 to 1835 Seymour was captain of the survey ship HMS Challenger, which was wrecked off the coast of Chile. In 1841 he was given command of HMS Britannia, then of HMS Powerful in the Mediterranean, and in 1845 of HMS Vindictive, in which he sailed off the coast of North America and in the West Indies. The Canadian drawings, to my mind, belong to this commission, though I have seen nothing that says so directly. In 1849 he toured France, inspected dockyards, arsenals and an engineering works, and wrote a detailed report for the Admiralty. From December 1850 he commanded HMS Monarch at Sheerness, and from 1851 to 1854 he was Commodore Superintendent of Devonport Dockyard.

In 1854, during the Crimean War, Seymour went to the Baltic under Vice-Admiral Sir Charles Napier. He was wounded, and that same year, on 27 May, was promoted to rear-admiral. When the campaign resumed in 1855 under Admiral Richard Dundas, he was second in command and flew his flag in HMS Exmouth. By one account he was wounded when a Russian mine of a new design, brought aboard to be examined, exploded; by another, at Kronstadt. On 5 July 1855 he was appointed Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath.

From 19 February 1856 Seymour was commander-in-chief of the East Indies and China Station. The occasion of the war was the seizure by the Chinese authorities of the Arrow, a ship under the British flag, and Seymour, flying his flag in HMS Calcutta, directed the first operations of the Second Opium War. In November 1856 he commanded at the Battle of the Bogue, in June 1857 he helped destroy the Chinese fleet at the Battle of Fatshan Creek, and in December he captured Canton (Guangzhou). In 1858 his forces took the Taku Forts, and the Chinese government agreed to the Treaty of Tientsin. In 1859 he was made Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath. Seymour Road on Hong Kong Island is named after him.

From 1859 to 1863 Seymour sat as a Liberal Member of Parliament for Devonport. He became vice-admiral in November 1860, for three years from March 1863 was commander-in-chief at Portsmouth, and on 5 March 1864 was promoted admiral. He retired in 1870, and from 1876 until his death held the honorary post of Vice-Admiral of the United Kingdom.

In 1829 he married Dorothy Knighton. His nephew, Edward Hobart Seymour, also became an admiral. Michael Seymour died on 23 February 1887 in Hampshire: by one account at Cuddington House, by another near Horndean.