Valentine Collard

Notes on Officer

Valentine Collard died at Teddington, Middlesex, 18 March, 1846, aged 76. He was brother of the late Messrs. James and Sampson Collard, the first of whom, a Master’s Mate of the Terpsichore, died, we believe, in 1794, and the other, a Lieutenant of the York 64, was lost about Jan. 1804. He was also first cousin of the present Lieut. Sampson Edwards, R.N.

This officer entered the Navy, 22 May, 1783, as Fst.-cl. Vol., on board the Shark sloop, commanded by his uncle, Capt. Valentine Edwards, on the Home station, where, until March, 1793, he further served, as Midshipman and Master’s Mate, in the Champion 24, Capt. Sampson Edwards, and Iphigenia 32, Capt. Patrick Sinclair. On subsequently proceeding to the Mediterranean in the St. George 98, flag-ship of Rear-Admiral John Gell, he witnessed the capture of the St. Jago, a rich Spanish galleon, and after being for some time in constant collision with the enemy’s batteries during the occupation of Toulon, and assisting at the capture of La Modeste 36, and two armed tartans, in the port of Genoa, was promoted, 17 Nov. 1793, to a Lieutenancy in the Tartar 28, Capt. Thos. Fras. Fremantle, and immediately sent in charge of a tender to Sardinia, with despatches for Commodore Linzee. Assuming next the command of Le Petit Boston schooner, Mr. Collard actively co-operated in the sieges of St. Fiorenza and Bastia. At the close of a servitude of two years and a half on board L’Eclair 20, commanded by Capt. Robt. Gambler Middleton and others, he joined, 12 Dec. 1796, the Britannia 100, bearing the flag of Vice-Admiral Chas. Thompson, and was First Lieutenant of that ship on 14 Feb. 1797. Having obtained command, 8 March following, of the Fortune sloop, which he lost near Oporto, 19 July in the same year, Capt. Coleman was subsequently appointed, 6 Feb. 1800, and 30 June, 1804, to the Vestal frigate, armée en flûte, and Railleur sloop. In the former of these vessels he served at the reduction of Genoa, and in the expedition to Egypt; and, while in the Railleur, he was employed, in charge of an explosion-vessel, on the celebrated catamaran mission against the Boulogne flotilla, in Oct. 1804,^[1] as also at the capture, 24 April, 1805, of 7 schuyts, carrying altogether 18 guns, 1 brass howitzer, and 168 men. For his meritorious exertions as Superintendent, in 1805-6, of the naval operations in the river Weser, during the occupation of Hanover by an Anglo-Russian army under Lord Cathcart and General Bensigen, including the re-embarkation of the British troops, and his attention in safely convoying the last division of transports to the Downs, Capt. Collard was ultimately, on 13 Oct. 1807, promoted to Post rank. Previously to that event, however, he had been further employed, in command of a small squadron of sloops and gun-brigs, protecting the trade in the Baltic, and had joined in the attack on Copenhagen. We afterwards find Capt. Collard obtaining command – in Nov. 1807, of the Majestic 74, flag-ship on the North Sea station of Rear-Admiral Thos. Macnamara Russell – in the course of 1809, pro tem., of the Gibraltar 80, and Cyane 22 – and next, of the Dreadnought 98, bearing the flag in the Channel of Rear-Admiral Thos. Sotheby. He was finally placed on half-pay in 1810, and, on 23 Nov. 1841, was promoted to Flag rank.

Rear-Admiral Collard, whose intrepid conduct in twice plunging overboard when in command of the Vestal and Railleur, and saving the lives of two of his crew, procured him the appellation of “the animated life-boat,” had been twice married. His first wife having died 5 June, 1821, he wedded, secondly, 25 Sept. 1823, Mary Ann, daughter of Geo. Kempster, Esq. He again became a widower 1 Dec. 1844.