William Penn ( Royal Navy officer ) Sir William Penn ( 23 April 1621 – 16 September 1670 ) was an English admiral and politician who sat in the House of Commons from 1660 to 1670 . He was the father of William Penn , founder of the Province of Pennsylvania . Life . Penn was born in St . Thomas Parish , Bristol to Giles Penn and Joan Gilbert . On 6 June 1643 he married Margaret Jasper , a daughter of a wealthy Dutch merchant from Rotterdam . They had three children : Margaret , Richard and William . He served his apprenticeship at sea with his father . In the first Civil War he fought on the side of the parliament , and was in command of a ship in the squadron maintained against the king in the Irish seas . The service was arduous and called for both energy and good seamanship . In 1648 he was arrested and sent to London , but was soon released , and sent back as rear admiral in the " Assurance " . The exact cause of the arrest is unknown , but it may be presumed to have been that he was suspected of being in correspondence with the king ' s supporters . It is highly probable that he was , for until the Restoration he was regularly in communication with the Royalists , while serving the parliament , or Cromwell , so long as their service was profitable , and making no scruple of applying for grants of the confiscated lands of the king ' s Irish friends . After 1650 he was employed as commander in chief of the southern fleet in the Atlantic and in the Mediterranean in pursuit of the Royalists under Prince Rupert . He was so active on this service that when he returned home on 18 March 1651 he could boast that he had not put foot on shore for more than a year . In the First Anglo - Dutch War , he served in the navy of the Commonwealth of England , commanding squadrons at the battles of the Kentish Knock ( 1652 ) , Portland , the Gabbard and Scheveningen ( 1653 ) . In this last battle a sniper from his ship killed Dutch admiral and fleetcommander Maarten Tromp on the Dutch flaggship Brederode . In 1654 he offered to carry the fleet over to the king , but in October of the same year he had no scruple in accepting the naval command in the expedition to the West Indies sent out by Cromwell . In 1655 he commanded the fleet that launched a bungled attack on La Hispaniola . He was not responsible for the shameful repulse at San Domingo , which was due to a panic among the troops . Afterwards the less desirable island of Jamaica was seized for the Commonwealth regime . On their return he and his military colleague Venables were sent to the Tower . He made humble submission , and when released retired to the estate he had received from confiscated land in Ireland . In April 1660 Penn was elected MP for Member of Parliament for Weymouth and Melcombe Regis in the Convention Parliament . He played a small part in the Restoration : he was on the Earl of Sandwich ' s ship , the " Naseby " ( later the " Royal Charles " ) which was sent to fetch king Charles II from his exile in the Dutch Republic ( first Breda and later Amsterdam ) over to England in May 1660 . During the voyage he made himself known to the Duke of York , who was soon to be appointed Lord High Admiral , and with whom he had a lasting influence . In 1661 Penn was re - elected MP for Weymouth and Melcombe Regis in the Cavalier Parliament . In the Second Anglo - Dutch War he was flag captain at the Battle of Lowestoft in 1665 under James Stuart , Duke of York , and later in the year admiral of one of the fleets sent to intercept de Ruyter . A key source for the adult life of Penn is the Diary of his next door neighbour Samuel Pepys . In 1660 Penn was appointed a Commissioner of the Navy Board where he worked with Pepys , Clerk of the Acts to the Navy Board . The character of " mean fellow " given him by Pepys is borne out by much that is otherwise known of him . But it is no less certain that he was an excellent seaman and a good fighter . Like Pepys and the Earl of Sandwich ( Pepys ' patron at the Navy Board ) Penn was a " moderate " Roundhead who had succeeded in maintaining his position at the Restoration . Unsurprisingly , Penn appears several times in Pepys diary . A typical entry ( 5 April 1666 ) : " To the office , where the falsenesse and impertinencies of Sir W . Pen would make a man mad to think of . " But he is referenced perhaps most vividly in an entry for 1665 when we read , " At night home and up to the leads [ roof ] , were contrary to expectation driven down again with a stinke by Sir W . Pen ' s shying of a shitten pot in their house of office " On the other hand , the diary entry for 4 July 1666 contains a long account of Penn ' s analysis of what was to be learnt from the Four Days ' Battle , ending with the statement " He did talk very rationally to me , insomuch that I took more pleasure this night in hearing him discourse then I ever did in my life in anything that he said . " A native of the West Country Sir William Penn is buried in the church of St . Mary Redcliffe in Bristol . His helm and half - armour are hung on the wall , together with the tattered banners of the Dutch ships that he captured in battle . His portrait by Lely , part of the Flagmen of Lowestoft series , is in the Painted Hall at Greenwich . After his death , his son , William , accepted the grant of land in the American colonies in lieu of money owed by the Crown to his father , and he named the new colony Pennsylvania in his father ' s memory . Though Sir William Penn was not a high - minded man , he is a figure of considerable importance in British naval history . As admiral and General at Sea for Parliament he helped in 1653 to draw up the first code of tactics provided for the navy . It was the base of the " Duke of York ' s Sailing and Fighting Instructions , ” which continued for long to supply the orthodox tactical creed of the navy . He was an early proponent of fighting in line ahead , so as to bring as much firepower as possible to bear .