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date: 08 February 2025

Balchen, Sir Johnfree

(1670–1744)

Balchen, Sir Johnfree

(1670–1744)
  • Daniel A. Baugh

Sir John Balchen (1670–1744)

by Jonathan Richardson the elder, c. 1695

© National Maritime Museum, London, Greenwich Hospital Collection

Balchen, Sir John (1670–1744), naval officer, was born on 2 February 1670 at Godalming, Surrey, the fourth and only surviving child of John Balchin and Ann Edsur. His paternal forebears were yeoman landholders of long standing in the vicinity. (Although the name is commonly spelt Balchin, the admiral always wrote Balchen, as did most of his correspondents.) He went off to the navy at fifteen and for much of the 1690s was in the West Indies, where he was made lieutenant in 1692. In a memorial to the Admiralty requesting employment, dated 12 June 1699, he related his early history:

I have served in the navy for fourteen years past in several stations, and was lieutenant of the Dragon and Cambridge almost five years, then had the honour of a commission from Admiral [John] Neville in the West Indies to command the Virgin's prize, which bears date from 25 July 1697, and was confirmed by my lords of the admiralty on our arrival in England. I continued in command of the Virgin till September 1698, then being paid off, and never at any time have committed any misdemeanour which might occasion my being called to a court martial, to be turned out or suspended.

The death rate of officers in Neville's squadron was phenomenal; Balchen was a survivor and thus, though he lacked influential connections, made post aged twenty-seven. In 1701 he was appointed to command the fireship Firebrand. During the period ashore he had married, about 1699, Susannah, daughter of Colonel Apreece of Washingly, Huntingdonshire; they had six children.

In December 1701 Balchen moved to the fireship Vulcan and was attached to the main fleet under Sir George Rooke on the coast of Spain. Whether he took part in the attack on French and Spanish ships at Vigo (12 October 1702) is not certain, but near there he captured the Modéré (56 guns) and was given command of her; in February 1703 he was appointed to the Adventure (44 guns), in which he continued for the next two years, cruising in the North Sea and channel. On 19 March 1705 he was transferred to the Chester (54 guns) and was sent out to the west African coast (1705–6). Having survived that, he saw service in home waters where in autumn 1707 he was part of a small squadron escorting the Virginia and Portugal convoys to open sea. They were intercepted, however, by a dozen French warships, the conjoined squadrons of Forbin and Duguay-Trouin. Nearly all the merchant ships and transports escaped while the British escorts were being severely mauled. After rebuffing multiple attacks (10 October), the Chester at length succumbed to boarding when she was slowed and hemmed in by two enemy ships. A year later Balchen, back in England on parole, was fully exonerated by the court martial which tried him for loss of his ship on 27 September 1708. He was not formally exchanged until 1709; in August of that year he was given command of the Gloucester, a new ship of 60 guns. Leaving Spithead with cruising orders in late October, he had scarcely cleared land before encountering Duguay-Trouin and was again forced to surrender his ship (26 October). At the court martial (14 December 1709) the evidence showed that the Gloucester was engaged for above two hours with Duguay-Trouin's own ship, the Lis (74 guns), while another ship was also firing at her and three other ships were standing by, ready to board. Greatly damaged aloft, she could not carry head-sails. The court found no fault in Balchen or his ship's company and he was soon appointed to the Colchester (54 guns). On 9 November 1710 while en route from Plymouth to Portsmouth he encountered a 20-gun French privateer, 'chace'd him Large with a very strong Gale of wind', and secured his prize (TNA: PRO, ADM 1/1470).

During 1712 and 1713 the Colchester was in the Mediterranean with Sir John Jennings. After coming home in December 1713 Balchen had a quiet year before being appointed to the Diamond (40 guns) in February 1715 for a voyage to the West Indies and the suppression of piracy. He returned in May 1716. Immediately on paying off the Diamond Balchen was appointed to the guardship Orford in the Medway; he continued in her until February 1718, when he commissioned the Shrewsbury (80 guns), in which he accompanied Sir George Byng to the Mediterranean. On arrival Vice-Admiral Charles Cornwall, until then the commander-in-chief, hoisted his flag on the Shrewsbury, and was second in command in the battle off Cape Passaro on 31 July. The ship returned to England in December, and the following May Balchen was appointed to the Monmouth (70 guns), in which he accompanied Admiral Sir John Norris to the Baltic in the three successive summers of 1719, 1720, and 1721. Between 1722 and 1725 he commanded the guardship Ipswich at Spithead, and in February 1726 he was again appointed to the Monmouth, which cruised in the Baltic, in 1726 with Sir Charles Wager, and in 1727 with Norris. He was afterwards, in October 1727, sent out as part of a reinforcement to Wager at Gibraltar, thought to be still under Spanish siege, though in reality a cessation of arms had been arranged. On 19 July 1728 Balchen was promoted rear-admiral. After moving his flag from the Dreadnought (60 guns) to the Princess Amelia (80 guns) in 1731 he went out to the Mediterranean as second in command under Wager. The mission was designed to solidify peace with Spain by exhibiting a strong force alongside the Spanish navy to ensure a quiet landing of a Spanish garrison at Leghorn. After this was successfully done the British fleet returned home in December. In February 1734 Balchen was advanced to the rank of vice-admiral.

During the later 1730s and early 1740s Balchen generally served as flag-officer in charge of the ships at Plymouth. War with Spain in 1739 led to his being ordered to cruise off Ferrol to inhibit movements of Spanish warships and transports; on 9 April 1740 he left Plymouth with four ships of the line and was joined by three others. The mission was decided upon too late; the Cadiz and Ferrol squadrons had already come together and Balchen's force was outnumbered 14 to 7. When this was learned in London (28 April) there was great anxiety. Sir Charles Wager, the first lord, insisted that Balchen should be either recalled or reinforced. In May news came from France that Balchen had been beaten and taken (TNA: PRO, SP 42/81, fols. 323, 330), but the report was false. Balchen had learned that the Spanish forces had joined and therefore withdrew to 46° N to await further orders. Throughout the rest of 1740 he was kept in constant readiness because neutral France's mobilization of the Brest squadron meant that a powerful squadron would be needed to escort the planned expeditions (Lord Cathcart's assault force for the West Indies and Commodore George Anson's adventure to the Pacific) 150 leagues to sea, and Balchen was to command it.

In fact, however, Balchen was seldom ordered to sea, and then only to guard convoys. In June 1741 he confided to an old friend, Admiral Nicholas Haddock, stationed in the Mediterranean, his sense of missing out on fame and fortune:

[We] have Nobody spoke of Now but Mr. Virnon [sic]; he has all the Glory, and success pursues him. The West Indie people will be so Rich there wont be Roome for them to purchase Lands; whilst I am forced to drudge from place to place for Nothing.

BL, Egerton MS 2529, fol. 220

At long last he was a flag-officer in time of war yet he saw no prospects. At this same time Philip Vanbrugh, naval commissioner at Plymouth, wrote to a friend, 'Vice Admiral Balchen is here, but no flag hoisted, nor much to do, which gives him much trouble; whereas ease and quiet is most agreeable to me' (Matcham, 159). Seniority advanced Balchen to the rank of admiral on 11 August 1743. Retirement came the following April; he was made governor of Greenwich Hospital and given a handsome pension of £600 per annum. A knighthood was added in May.

Almost immediately, however, on 1 June, he was called back to active duty. A senior admiral was needed to command a large combined fleet of seventeen British and eight Dutch warships to counter the Brest squadron, which, it was soon learned, had gone to the Tagus and was blockading a fleet of desperately needed storeships and victuallers for the Mediterranean. At the start of the voyage some rich prizes finally came Balchen's way, as six large merchant ships from St Domingue fell to his squadron. In early September he escorted the replenishment ships to Gibraltar, safely past the French force which had withdrawn to Cadiz. Ideally he would have remained, as ordered, to seal that squadron in Cadiz harbour and look out for the incoming treasure ships from Havana, but the Dutch warships were destitute of provisions and though the British supplied them there was only enough to see the fleet home.

On 3 October, in the Channel approaches, the ships were caught in a ferocious storm and dispersed. Most were dismasted or seriously leaking when they got into Plymouth or Spithead, but Balchen's flagship, the Victory (100 guns), last seen on 4 October, was not among them. Frigates were sent to search, and Captain Thomas Grenville of the Falkland called at Guernsey, where he heard that wreckage had also washed up on Jersey and Alderney. On Guernsey's western and northern shores he saw masts and spars with 'VICT' carved on them, and countless other fragments and furnishings that were unmistakably hers. He did not report seeing bodies. From the evidence and complete absence of survivors—over 1100 men were aboard—it appeared that the ship may have overturned, but it was practically certain that it had also been broken upon rocks, possibly on the Caskets (TNA: PRO, ADM 1/1830, Grenville, 18 Oct 1744).

Balchen died at the age of seventy-five after fifty-eight years of naval service. He was a hard-working, thoroughgoing professional, recognized for his readiness to accept duty whenever and wherever required. When the Admiralty sent a notice in August 1740 stipulating that officers resigning their new appointments (almost always on a claim of ill health) must apply through the admiral in command, he responded, 'I believe I shall have but few Applications for that purpose, for they know I am no favourer of Quitting; they must be bad if I write for them' (Baugh, British Naval Administration, 117). Yet he was sympathetic when it came to issues affecting lower-deck morale. In 1729 he asked the Admiralty to allow volunteer recruits to go with the captains they had chosen if the captain happened to be re-assigned, and in 1741 he strongly recommended that trustworthy volunteers should be allowed ashore. His practical knowledge respecting ships and seamanship may be seen in plain-spoken letters of January 1735 concerning the Princess Amelia's frightening instability (Baugh, Naval Administration, 212–16). It was an absurd twist of fate that he became best known to history by a shipwreck.

Balchen's unexpected death in the line of duty having terminated his pension, the crown immediately settled £500 per annum on his widow. Four of Balchen's six children predeceased him. His youngest and only surviving son, George, who was promoted lieutenant by Nicholas Haddock in 1735 as a favour to the father (BL, Egerton MS, 2528, fol. 22), did not survive him long, dying of illness at Barbados in December 1745, aged twenty-eight, while captain of the Pembroke. The monument to the admiral in Westminster Abbey was erected by his wife. Its inscription (fully quoted in some older naval histories and biographies) mentions George Balchen's death and ends with the comment that he 'imitated the virtues and bravery of his good, but unfortunate father'. A surviving daughter, Frances, married Captain Temple West.

Sources

  • W. G. V. Balchin, ‘Admiral Sir John Balchin (1669–1744)’, Mariner's Mirror, 80 (1994), 332–5
  • H. W. Richmond, The navy in the war of 1739–48, 3 vols. (1920)
  • J. H. Owen, War at sea under Queen Anne, 1702–1708 (1938)
  • BL, Egerton MSS, 2528 fol. 22; 2529 fol. 220
  • D. A. Baugh, ed., Naval administration, 1715–1750, Navy RS, 120 (1977)
  • (captain's letters), Grenville, 18 Oct 1744, TNA: PRO, ADM 1/1830
  • D. A. Baugh, British naval administration in the age of Walpole (1965)
  • TNA: PRO, SP 42/81, fols. 323, 330
  • TNA: PRO, ADM 8 series (ships, officers, and stations)
  • T. Lediard, The naval history of England, 2 vols. (1735)
  • M. E. Matcham, A forgotten John Russell (1905)
  • TNA: PRO, ADM 1/1470
  • monument inscription, Westminster Abbey, London

Archives

Likenesses

  • J. Richardson the elder, portrait, 1695, NMM [see illus.]
  • G. Kneller, portrait, 1743–1744, NMM
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