# Royal Naval Biography/Greville, Henry Francis

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HENRY FRANCIS GREVILLE, Esq. [Captain of 1832.]
Is a son of Henry F. Greville, Esq., by Catherine, second daughter of Sir Bellingham Graham, Bart., of Norton Conyns, in the west riding of Yorkshire. His grandfather, Fulke Greville, Esq., Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary to the Court of Munich, was the son of the Hon. Algernon Greville, second son of Fulke, fifth Lord Brooke, ancestor of the present Earl of Warwick, by Mary, daughter and co-heiress of Lord Arthur Somerset, fifth son of the Duke of Beaufort. His grandmother was Miss Macartney, of Granard, county Longford, Ireland, a rich heiress. His father’s sister married the late Lord Crewe; one of his uncles was united to Lady Charlotte Bentinck, daughter of the Duke of Portland; another is retired Captain William Fulke Greville, R.N., a man of very large fortune.
This officer was born at Ebberston, co. York, Aug. 24th, 1794; and entered the navy, as midshipman on board the Renown 74, Captain (now Sir Philip C. H.) Durham, in Mar. 1806. We next find him, about Sept. 1808, joining the Arethusa frigate, Captain (afterwards Sir Robert) Mends, under whose command he saw much active service, and was shot through the leg in a boating expedition, on the north coast of Spain, in 1809. He was subsequently removed to the San Josef 110, flag-ship of Sir Charles Cotton, ​commander-in-chief on the Mediterranean station; and, about July 1810, to the Volage 22, Captain Phipps Hornby, which ship formed part of the squadron under Captain William Hoste, in the brilliant action off Lissa, Mar. 13th, 1811. From Sept. following until Mar. 1812, he served under Captain Philip Carteret, in the Naiad frigate, on the Boulogne station, where he assisted at the capture of two French 16-gun privateers. He was afterwards actively employed on the coast of North America, in the Junon frigate, Captain James Sanders, and as commanding officer of the Abeona, tender to Sir J. B. Warren’s flag-ship, from which he was appointed, in July 1813, to act as lieutenant of the Woolwich 44, armée en flûte, Commander T. B. Sulivan, with whom he suffered shipwreck on the north end of the island of Barbuda, during a dreadful hurricane, Nov. 6th in the same year. His promotion to the rank of lieutenant took place Jan. 4th, 1814.
Mr. Greville’s subsequent appointments were, in 1814, to the Minerva and Araxes, frigates; – July 31st, 1820, to be senior lieutenant of the Menai 26, Captain Fairfax Moresby, on the Cape of Good Hope station; – and, in May 1821, to command that ship’s tender, the Wizard, manned partly by government slaves from the Mauritius, and employed on a special service in Southern Africa, where he continued until Feb. 1822. He was promoted to the command of the Heron 18, at the Cape, July 19th following; and has since commanded the Espoir sloop on the same station. He obtained his present rank on the 27th Aug. 1832.
Captain Greville married, June 1816, Harriet Dorothea, only child of General John Despard, and niece to Sir Thomas Dalrymple Hesketh, Bart., by whom he has had several children. His eldest brother is senior major of H.M. 38th regiment of foot.
* ↑ See Suppl. Part II. p. 70.
* ↑ See Suppl. Part III. p. 365.