# A Naval Biographical Dictionary/Medley, Edward

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​MEDLEY. (Lieut., 1807- f-p., 35; h-p., 11.)
Edward Medley was born in Aug. 1789 or 90. This officer entered the Navy, in April, 1801, as Fst.-cl. Vol., on board the Brunswick 74, Capt. Geo. Hopewell Stephens; and in Aug. 1802, on his return from a voyage to Jamaica, joined the Escort gun-brig, Lieut.-Commander Wm. Peake. Between the following May and Nov. 1807, we find him employed on the Home station, chiefly in the capacity of Midshipman, in the Egyptienne 40, Capt. Hon. Chas.Elphinstone Fleeming, Entreprenante cutter, Lieut.-Commanders Brown and Robt. Benj. Young, Regulus 44, Capt. Chas. Worsley Boys, Captain 74, Capt. G. H. Stephens (part of the force under Admiral Hon. Wm. Cornwallis in his attack on the French fleet close in with Brest Harbour 22 Aug. 1805), and Quebec 32, Capts. Geo. McKinley and Viscount Falkland. In the latter ship he assisted at the capture of Heligoland 5 Sept. 1807; and in her boats he contributed to the cutting out of several vessels on the coast of Holland. He was confirmed a Lieutenant (after having acted for about a month as such) in the Wanderer 18, Capt. Edw. Crofton, on the West India station, 22 Dec. 1807; and was next appointed – 23 Jan. 1809, to the Standard 64, Capt. Thos. Harvey, lying at Chatham – 22 Feb. following, and 7 March, 1810, to the Rhodian 10, Capt. Geo. Mouhray, and Daedalus 32, Capt. Sam. Hood Inglefield, both on the Jamaica station – 25 Aug. 1810, and 15 March, 1811, to the Reynard 10, and Cressy 74, commanded in the Baltic by Capts. Hew Steuart and Chas. Dudley Pater – 15 Nov. 1811 (having invalided from the Cressy in the preceding June), to the Chanticleer 10, Capt. Rich. Spear – 18 Aug. 1812, to the Diomede 50, Capt. Chas. Montagu Fabian, under whom he was employed in the conveyance of troops to Spain and Portugal until April, 1813 – and, 16 Sept. 1815, for two months, to the Alban schooner, Capts. David Boyd and Hugh Patton. In July, 1808, Mr. Medley, then in the Wanderer, was severely wounded in the neck and taken prisoner while officiating as second in command of a party of 135 men, belonging to that sloop and to the Subtle and Ballahov schooner, in a gallant but sanguinary and unsuccessful attack made under the orders of Lieut. Geo. Augustus Spearing (who was killed) on the French island of St. Martin. On being exchanged he took a passage home on board a merchant-brig, the Mary Ann, carrying 10 guns in addition to her cargo, in which vessel, when off the Lizard, 1 Jan. 1809, he materially aided in beating off a French privateer of 16 guns. When First-Lieutenant, afterwards, of the Reynard, he appears to have been engaged in her boats in two cutting-out affairs; the result of the first being the capture of a vessel from Claysholm; and of the second, that of three row-boat privateers, carrying 1 gun each, with, in the whole, 50 or 60 men, by the gig and cutter manned with only 26 men under the command of Capt. Steuart and himself. His appointments, since he left the Alban, have been – 8 Nov. 1823, to the Preventive Water-Guard Service on the coast of Cornwall, where he remained until 1826 – 6 July, 1827, to the command of the Plumper gun-brig, then on the eve of her departure for the coast of Africa, whence, on account of her defective condition, she was ordered home in Dec. 1828, with 40 persons on board under charge of piracy, and was paid off in March, 1829 – 22 April, 1831, to the Ordinary at Sheerness, during his stay at which place, a period of three years, he rendered himself conspicuous by his exertions in procuring the erection, for the first time, of a church and school, and also by his conduct in performing, at the time of the cholera, duties which a fear of infection had caused to be withholden from the very convicts – and, 26 Aug. 1834, to the Coast Guard. In that service, of which he is now an Inspecting-Lieutenant, Mr. Medley has been successively employed at Cromarty, at West Haven, on the banks of the Tay (where his judicious arrangements were to a great extent the means of preserving property and preventing shipwreck), and at Freswick and Staxigoe, N.B.
He married, in 1811, a daughter of Mr. Story, King’s Pilot, of Sheerness Yard, who had served in that capacity on borad the Venerable 74, in the action off Camperdown 11 Oct. 1797. By that lady he has surviving issue two sons and four daughters, one of whom is married to Lieut. W. H. Woodham, R.N., and another to Jas. Jeffery, Esq., Master R.N. (1841), now serving on board the Avon steamer, Capt. Henry C. Otter. One of his sons, a Midshipman of the Vestal 26, Capt. Wm. Jones, died on board that ship in 1835. He had previously distinguished himself while surveying the coast of Africa under Capts. Edw. Belcher and Wm. Geo. Skyring; and had been on shore with the latter officer when killed by the natives at Cape Roxo; on which occasion, after carrying his Captain in his arms to a boat, he was under the necessity of making a precipitate flight in order to avoid sharing the same fate.