# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Seymour, Frederick Beauchamp Paget

​SEYMOUR, FREDERICK BEAUCHAMP PAGET, Lord Alcester (1821–1895), admiral, son of Colonel Sir Horace Beauchamp Seymour, grandson of Lord Hugh Seymour [q. v.] and nephew of Sir George Francis Seymour [q. v.], was born in London on 12 April 1821. He received his early education at Eton, and entered the navy in January 1834. He passed his examination in 1840; served as a mate in the Britannia, flagship of Sir John Acworth Ommanney [q. v.] in the Mediterranean, and was promoted to the rank of lieutenant on 7 March 1842. He was then appointed to the Thalia frigate, with Captain George Hope, in the Pacific; and from 1844 to 1847 was flag-lieutenant to his uncle, Sir George Seymour, then commander-in-chief in the Pacific. On 5 June 1847 he was promoted to be commander. In 1852 he served as a volunteer on the staff of General Godwin in Burma, and was four times gazetted for distinguished conduct. In May 1853 he commissioned the Brisk for the North American and West Indian station, whence he was recalled early in 1854 and sent to the White Sea in the squadron under Commodore (afterwards Admiral) Sir Erasmus Ommanney. In May 1855 he was appointed to the Meteor floating battery, which he took out to the Crimea, and brought back to Portsmouth in the early summer of 1856—two feats of seamanship scarcely less dangerous than any war services. In July 1857 he commissioned the Pelorus, which he commanded for nearly six years on the Australian station, where in 1860–1 he commanded the naval brigade in New Zealand during the Maori war; in acknowledgment of this service he was made a C.B. on 16 July 1861.
From 1868 to 1870 he was private secretary to the first lord of the admiralty, Hugh Culling Eardley Childers. On 1 April 1870 he was promoted to the rank of rear-admiral. From December 1870 to May 1872 he commanded the flying squadron, and in 1872–4 was one of the lords of the admiralty. From 1874 to 1877 he commanded the Channel fleet; was made a vice-admiral on 31 Dec. 1876, and a K.C.B. on 2 June 1877. From 1880 to 1883 he was commander-in-chief in the Mediterranean; having thus, in 1880, the command of the European squadron of demonstration on the Albanian coast consequent on the refusal of Turkey to cede Dulcigno to Montenegro. On the dispersal of the fleet after the Porte had yielded the point, Seymour received the thanks of the government and was made a G.C.B., 24 May 1881. In the following year he commanded in the bombardment of Alexandria (11 July 1882), and afterwards in the operations on the coast of Egypt. For this service he was raised to the peerage as Baron Alcester of Alcester in the county of Warwick, and received a parliamentary grant of 25,000l., the freedom of the city of London, and a sword of honour. From March 1883 to June 1885 he was again a lord of the admiralty; and on 12 April 1886, having attained the age of sixty-five, was placed on the retired list. During the following years he lived principally in London, where his genial nature rendered him a favourite in society, while his attention to his dress and personal appearance obtained for him the name of ‘The Ocean Swell.’ Latterly his eyesight failed and his health was much broken. He died at his chambers ​in Ryder Street, St. James's, on 30 March 1895, and was buried at Brookwood on 3 April. He was unmarried, and at his death the title became extinct.
J. K. L.