Colonial Despatches

Fanshawe was captain of the Daphne on the Pacific Station from 1848 to 1853. As several correspondences show, Fanshawe fought members of the Nahwitti First Nation over the apparent murders of three British seamen in 1851. This file, for example, contains several documents that detail the encounter.

Born in Stoke, Davenport, Edward Fanshawe entered the Royal Navy in December 1828 after taking just over a year to complete the two-year course at the Royal Naval College, Greenwich.1 He served in the Mediterranean and the East Indies before coming to the Pacific, where he grew wealthy from silver freight.2

Fanshawe left the Pacific to command the Cossack in the Crimean War of 1854-56, followed by several other vessels in the Baltic, Mediterranean, and English Channel until 1861.3 From 1861-70 he acted as superintendent of the Chatham and Malta Dockyards, and was promoted to rear-admiral and nominated lord of the Admiralty.4

Fanshawe became vice-admiral in 1870, and was nominated to Companion to the Order of Bath [CB] in 1871.5 He held several other important positions including commander in chief on the North American station 1870-73, Royal Naval College President 1875-78, and commander in chief at Portsmouth 1878-79.6 He retired in November 1879 at the age of sixty-five, eventually advancing to the rank of Knight Grand Cross [GCB] at the 1887 jubilee.7

• 1. J. K. Laughton, Fanshawe, Sir Edward Gennys, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.
• 2. Ibid.
• 3. Ibid.
• 4. Ibid.
• 5. Ibid.
• 6. Ibid.
• 7. Ibid.