page_title: Edward John Trelawny
section_title: Naval career
hierarchical_section_title: Edward John Trelawny / Naval career
caption_attribution_description: English: The Fighting Temeraire. 1839, by Joseph Mallord William Turner. Measures 3' x 4' Français&#160;: The Fighting Temeraire. 1839, par Joseph Mallord William Turner. Dimensions 90.7 x 121.6 cm, tableau exposé à la National Gallery, à Londres.
context_page_description: Edward John Trelawny was a British biographer, novelist and adventurer who is best known for his friendship with the Romantic poets Percy Bysshe Shelley and Lord Byron. Trelawny was born in England to a family of modest income but extensive ancestral history. Though his father became wealthy while he was a child, Edward had an antagonistic relationship with him. After an unhappy childhood, he was sent away to a school. He was assigned as a volunteer in the Royal Navy shortly before he turned thirteen.
  Trelawny served on multiple ships as a naval volunteer while in his teen years. He traveled to India and saw combat during engagements with the French Navy. He did not care for the naval lifestyle, however, and left at nineteen years of age without becoming a commissioned officer. After retiring from the navy, he had a brief and unhappy marriage in England. He then moved to Switzerland and later Italy where he met Shelley and Byron. He became friends with the two poets, and helped teach them about sailing. He enjoyed inventing elaborate stories about his time in the navy, and in one he claimed to have deserted and become a pirate in India.
context_section_description: Charles Brereton had originally hoped that his sons would attend Oxford. He became disappointed by the slow pace of Edward's learning as a child. In October 1805, shortly before his thirteenth birthday, he enrolled Edward in the Royal Navy as a first class volunteer. The younger sons of the gentry traditionally entered the military at that time. His family enrolled him as early as they could because seniority was crucial to career advancement at that time.
  His first experiences in the navy were serving on ships that had returned from the Battle of Trafalgar with many badly wounded sailors. In November he was transferred to Temeraire and then to Colossus. He later attended a naval school in Portsmouth. In 1806 he served aboard HMS Woolwich. While serving on Woolwich he travelled to the Cape of Good Hope and to St. Helena. In 1808 he moved to the frigate Resistance, and in 1809 to the frigate Cornelia. While serving aboard Cornelia he travelled to Bombay. Trelawny's name was entered on the books of HMS Superb as volunteer first class in October 1812.
  Trelawny was initially happy to have joined the navy and enjoyed the rough lifestyle there. He often exaggerated his age while he was in the navy. Some biographers believe he commanded a vessel as a midshipman in an engagement with the French at Mauritius in 1810. Some also believe that he was wounded engaging the French in Java in August 1811. He left the Navy in 1812 at the age of 19; receiving a final settlement of pay in 1815. He had grown to resent the discipline of the Navy due in part to the frequent punishment that he experienced. He was often sent to the masthead for several hours at a time. During that time, he frequently entertained fantasies of mutiny and desertion. Some biographers believe that Trelawny was inspired by hearing accounts of the French pirate Robert Surcouf. He was never commissioned as a lieutenant, though many of his contemporaries were. This disappointed him, although he began referring to himself as Lieutenant Trelawny anyway.
caption: The Fighting Temeraire tugged to her last berth to be broken up by J. M. W. Turner, 1838
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