# Royal Naval Biography/Kempthorne, William

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WILLIAM KEMPTHORNE, Esq. [Post-Captain of 1816.]
This officer’s father and maternal grandfather were both commanders in the Falmouth packet service: the name of the latter was Goodridge.
Mr. W. Kempthorne is a native of Penryn, co. Cornwall. He entered the navy in 1795, and served the whole of his time, as midshipman, under Sir Edward Pellew, now Viscount Exmouth. He was consequently present at the capture and destruction of many French men of war privateers, and merchant vessels. Among the former were l’Unité and la Virginie frigates, and les Droits de l’Homme, a ship of 80 guns. At the age of 16 years, he was taken by the republicans, carried into Rochelle, and there confined in the same prison as the common malefactors. After a captivity of six weeks, however, he had the good fortune to effect his escape, in company with Mr. Henry Gilbert, another Cornish youth; and in the course of a few days more was again safe on board the Indefatigable. His promotion to the rank of lieutenant took place in 1800.
We next find Mr. Kempthorne proceeding with Sir Edward Pellew, in the Culloden 74, to the East Indies, where he was appointed first lieutenant of the Cornwallis frigate, in 1805. He subsequently obtained the command of the Diana brig, mounting 10 twelve-pounder carronades, in which vessel he sailed from Bombay, on his first cruise, victualling only 26 officers and men, in May, 1807. On the 8th Aug. following, while heading his jolly boat’s crew in an attack upon the Topaze, an American piratical schooner, near Macao, he ​was knocked overboard, badly wounded in the head and back by boarding pikes, notwithstanding which he renewed the attempt as soon as a 6-oared cutter arrived to his assistance, and at length succeeded in obtaining possession. The schooner had on board 29 stout fellows, of whom several, including the captain of the gang, were killed and wounded. Three of the Diana’s people received severe wounds, but fortunately not a man was slain. The Topaze was subsequently condemned as lawful prize.
On the 6th Aug. 1808, Lieutenant Kempthorne ran alongside of, and captured, a Dutch national brig, mounting 6 long 6-pounders, lying at anchor near the fort of Serookie, on the north side, and near the eastern end of Java. This vessel had on board a number of brass guns, intended to strengthen the defences of Sourabaya.
Towards the close of the same year, when Rear-Admiral Drury made a demonstration of attacking Canton, in order to enforce some demands on the Chinese government. Lieutenant Kempthorne proceeded up Junk river, with a prize brig and the East India Company’s cruiser Discovery under his orders, and effectually blockaded that city until the enterprise was abandoned.
The Diana and Discovery were afterwards sent to Manilla, to procure the release of the officers and crew of the Greyhound frigate, Captain the Hon. William Pakenham, recently wrecked on the coast of Luconia. On their return to India, they fell in with two French frigates, the Canoniere and Laurel, off Pulo Aor, from whence they were chased down to the straits of Sincapore. The Diana having thrown her guns overboard, escaped in the night, through a narrow channel near Point Romania; but the Discovery, in which vessel Captain Pakenham had embarked, was taken. In consequence of Lieutenant Kempthorne’s escape, the enemy thought it prudent to quit their cruising ground, which was soon afterwards passed over by a valuable fleet of country ships, under the ​protection of la Dedaigneuse, a frigate very inferior in force to either the Canoniere or her consort.
On the 11th Sept. 1809, the Diana, then mounting 10 long 6-pounders, with a complement of 45 men and boys, captured, after an action of one hour and ten minutes, the Dutch national brig Zephyr, of 14 long sixes, near the north end of Celebes. In this affair, she sustained no damage of the least consequence, and had not a single person hurt: the Zephyr, on the other hand, was much cut up in masts and rigging; and, out of a crew of 45, had twelve or thirteen men killed and wounded. Among the former was her first lieutenant.
Whilst employed in the eastern seas. Lieutenant Kempthorne made several important hydrographical discoveries, one of which, an extensive and dangerous patch of coral, to the southward of the Natuma islands, he named after his little vessel.
The Diana being at length worn out, was condemned by survey, and laid up at the island of Rodrigues, in May, 1810. The late Mr. Steel, in his navy lists of that period, described her as a vessel wrecked, which, we are told, had the effect of retarding Lieutenant Kempthorne’s promotion, until April 3, 1811.
This officer’s subsequent appointments were, Nov. 11, 1813, to the Harlequin sloop; July 2, 1816, to the Beelzebub bomb; and Aug. 29, (two days after the battle of Algiers,) to act as captain of the Queen Charlotte 108, bearing the flag of his early patron. During that sanguinary conflict, on which occasion he commanded the division of bombs, his own large mortar was fired once in every ten minutes. He obtained post rank Sept. 16, 1816 ; and continued to command the Queen Charlotte until she was put out of commission.
* ↑ See Vol. I. Part I. pp. 216–219.
* ↑ See Captain Percy Grace.