# A Naval Biographical Dictionary/Edgell, Henry Folkes

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​EDGELL. (Rear-Admiral of the Red, 1840. f-p., 25; h-p., 42.)
Henry Folkes Edgell was born 13 Aug. 1767, and died, 14 June, 1846, at his seat, Standerwick Court, co. Somerset. He was son of the late Chaffin Edgell, Esq., by Lucretia Eleanor Rishton, grand-daughter of Martin Folkes, Esq., President of the Royal Society. He had lost three brothers in the military service of their country, Charles, a Major, and Martin and Beddison, both Captains. This officer entered the Navy, 15 March, 1780, as Fst.-cl. Vol., on board the Bienfaisant 64, Capt. John Macbride. In that ship, when off Kinsale, he assisted at the capture, 13 Aug. following, of the Comte d’Artois privateer, of 64 guns and 664 men, which struck, at the close of an action of an hour and 10 minutes, in which the British had 3 men killed and 22 wounded, and the enemy 21 killed and 35 wounded. After further contributing to the capture of the Comtesse d’Artois, a small French privateer, Mr. Edgell accompanied his Captain, as Midshipman, into the Artois frigate, and in the course of 1781 was present in the action off the Dogger Bank, and also in a very warm contest of 30 minutes which terminated in the capture, by the Artois alone, of two Dutch privateers, each mounting 24 nine-pounders. Between 1784 and the receipt of his first commission, 16 Nov. 1790, he next served, on the Irish, Channel, and Newfoundland stations, chiefly as Master’s Mate, in the Druid 32, Capt. Macbride, Swallow 16, Capt. David Maokay, and Salisbury 50, flag-ship of Rear-Admiral Milbanke. In July, 1795, Mr. Edgell (who, for the last two years and a half, had been again employed under his patron, then Vice-Admiral Macbride, in the Cumberland and Minotaur 74’s) became Signal-Lieutenant to Vice-Admiral Hon. Wm. Waldegrave, in the Barfleur 98, the barge of which ship he commanded at the capture, in Tunis Bay, of the French ships Némésis of 28, and Sardine of 22 guns, 9 March, 1796. After sharing in the battle off Cape St. Vincent, 14 Feb. 1797, he successively followed the same Flag-officer, as First-Lieutenant, into the Flora 36, Latona 38, and Romney 50; and, while in the Flora, he witnessed the capture of L’Incroyable privateer, of 24 guns and 220 men. Being promoted to the command, 5 March, 1798, of the Pluto sloop, Capt. Edgell continued to serve in that vessel, on the Newfoundland station, until Aug. 1802, when, having superintended the cession of the islands of St. Pierre and Miquelon to the French, and been advanced to Post-rank by commission dated 29 April, 1802, he returned to England. We afterwards find him, in 1804-5, commanding the Romney Marsh district of Sea Fencibles, and on 30 Sept. 1808, appointed to the Cornelia 36. Proceeding in that frigate to India, he there co-operated in the reduction of the Isle of France, where for some time he commanded the blockading squadron off Port Louis, and was also at the capture of Java, in 1810-11. Capt. Edgell came home in the Piedmontaise 38, in Sept. 1812; and remained thenceforward on half-pay. He assumed Flag-rank 17 Aug. 1840.
The Rear-Admiral, who was a Magistrate and Deputy-Lieutenant for co. Somerset, married, in 1802, Miss O’Keefe. He has left by that lady an only son, the present Capt. Harry Edm. Edgell, R.N.