# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Harvey, Eliab

​HARVEY, Sir ELIAB (1758–1830), admiral, second son of William Harvey of Rolls Park, near Chigwell in Essex, for many years M.P. for the county (d. 1763), was born 5 Dec. 1758. He was great-grandson of Sir Eliab Harvey, the brother of the great William Harvey (1569–1657) [q. v.] In 1771 he was nominally entered on board the William and Mary yacht. He afterwards served in the Orpheus frigate with Captain MacBride, and in the Lynx in the West Indies. In 1776 he was sent out to North America in the Mermaid, from which he was transferred to the Eagle, then carrying Lord Howe's flag. He returned to England in October 1778, and on 26 Feb. 1779 was promoted to be lieutenant of the Resolution, which, however, he did not join. In May 1780 Harvey was returned to parliament as member for Maldon in Essex. His elder brother William, M.P. for Essex, had died in the previous year, and Harvey had succeeded to a very handsome property. He had just come of age, and for the time appears to have won some distinction as a man about town and a reckless plunger. According to Walpole, he lost 100,000l. one evening at hazard to a Mr. O'Byrne, who said, ‘You can never pay me.’ ‘I can,’ answered Harvey; ‘my estate will sell for the debt.’ ‘No,’ said O'Byrne, ‘I will win 10,000l.; you shall throw for the other 90.’ They did, and Harvey won (Walpole's Letters, ed. Cunningham, vii. 329). In August 1781 Harvey was appointed to the Dolphin; in the following February he was moved into the Fury sloop; and on 21 March he was promoted to the command of the Otter, in which he served in the North Sea till his advancement to post rank on 20 Jan. 1783. Shortly afterwards he married Lady Louisa Nugent, younger daughter of Earl Nugent. He commanded the Hussar for a few weeks during the Spanish armament in 1790. On the outbreak of the revolutionary war in 1793, he was appointed to the Sta. Margarita frigate, in which he served under Sir John Jervis [q. v.] at the reduction of Martinique and Guadeloupe (March, April 1794). On her return to England in the summer, the Sta. Margarita was attached to the Channel fleet, and on 23 Aug. was one of the squadron under Sir John Borlase Warren [q. v.], which drove a French frigate and two corvettes on shore on the coast of Bretagne. Early in 1796 Harvey was moved into the Valiant of 74 guns, and in her went to the West Indies with the squadron under Sir Hyde Parker (1739–1807) [q. v.] In 1797 ill-health obliged him to return to England, and in the spring of 1798 he was appointed to the command of the Sea Fencibles in the Essex district. In 1799 he was appointed to the Triumph of 74 guns, and commanded her in the Channel and off Brest till the peace of Amiens. He represented Essex from 1803 till 1812; and in November 1803 he commissioned the ‘Fighting Téméraire’ of 98 guns. After eighteen months' service in the blockade of Brest and in the Bay of Biscay, the Téméraire in the autumn of 1805 formed part of the fleet off Cadiz. In the battle of Trafalgar she was the second ship of the weather line, closely following the Victory, and her share in the action was particularly brilliant. ‘Nothing could be finer,’ wrote Collingwood; ‘I have no words in which I can sufficiently express my admiration of it.’ On 9 Nov. 1805 Harvey was included in the general promotion consequent on the creation of the new grade of ‘admirals of the red,’ and became rear-admiral. In the following spring he hoisted his flag on board the Tonnant, in the Channel fleet under the command of Lord St. Vincent, and after St. Vincent's retirement under that of Lord Gambier [q. v.], with whom he was present in Basque Roads in April 1809. He conceived himself aggrieved by the appointment of Lord Cochrane to a special command, and expressed his anger on the quarter-deck of the flagship so publicly ​and violently (Dundonald, Autobiography of a Seaman, i. 357–9), that Gambier was obliged to bring him to a court-martial held at Portsmouth on 22–3 May. By this Harvey was dismissed the service; and though in the following year, 21 March 1810, he was reinstated in his rank and seniority by order in council, ‘in consideration of his long and meritorious services,’ he was never employed again. On 31 Jan. 1810 he was advanced to be vice-admiral of the blue. In January 1815 he was nominated a K.C.B.; became admiral on 12 Aug. 1819; in 1820 and again in 1826 was re-elected M.P. for Essex; and in February 1825 received the grand cross of the Bath. He died on 20 Feb. 1830, leaving issue six daughters. Of his two sons, the elder, a captain in the army, was killed at the siege of Burgos in 1812; the younger died in 1823.
[Marshall's Royal Naval Biog. i. 273; Ralfe's Naval Biog. ii. 432; official documents in the Public Record Office; the minutes of the court-martial are published in Ralfe's Naval Chron. ii. 131; Gent. Mag. 1830, c. 365.]
J. K. L.