Vice-Admiral
Henry Seymour CBThe Most Honourable Order of the Bath is a British order of chivalry founded by George I on 18 May 1725. The name derives from the elaborate mediæval ceremony for creating a knight, which involved bathing as one of its elements. The knights so created were known as Knights of the Bath...
(20 March 1818 – 25 July 1869) was a
Royal NavyThe Royal Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Founded in the 16th century, it is the oldest service branch and is known as the Senior Service...
officer who went on to be
Third Naval LordThe Third Sea Lord and Controller of the Navy was formerly the Naval Lord and member of the Board of Admiralty responsible for procurement and matériel in the British Royal Navy...
.
Career
Seymour was the son of Admiral Sir George Seymour and grandson of
Lord Hugh SeymourVice-Admiral Lord Hugh Seymour was a senior British Royal Navy officer of the late 18th century who was the fifth son of Francis Seymour-Conway, 1st Marquess of Hertford and became known for being both a prominent society figure and a highly competent naval officer...
. His mother was Georgiana Mary, daughter of Admiral the Hon.
Sir George Cranfield-BerkeleyAdmiral Sir George Cranfield Berkeley GCB , often known as George Berkeley, was a highly experienced, popular, yet controversial naval officer and politician in late eighteenth and early nineteenth century Britain...
.
Francis Seymour, 5th Marquess of HertfordFrancis George Hugh Seymour, 5th Marquess of Hertford GCB PC , known as Francis Seymour until 1870, was a British courtier and Conservative politician...
, was his elder brother. He joined the
Royal NavyThe Royal Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Founded in the 16th century, it is the oldest service branch and is known as the Senior Service...
in 1831 and having been promoted to
CaptainCaptain is a senior officer rank of the Royal Navy. It ranks above Commander and below Commodore and has a NATO ranking code of OF-5. The rank is equivalent to a Colonel in the British Army or Royal Marines and to a Group Captain in the Royal Air Force. The rank of Group Captain is based on the...
in 1844 was given command of
HMS CarysfortHMS Carysfort was a sixth-rate sailing frigate of the Royal Navy, launched in 1836 and named for the Earl of Carysfort, who had been a former Lord of the Admiralty. Her captain, Lord George Paulet, occupied the Hawaiian Islands for five months in 1843...
in 1845. He went on to command
HMS CumberlandHMS Cumberland was a 70-gun third rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy, launched on 21 October 1842 at Chatham Dockyard.She carried a crew of 620 men. In March 1854 she sailed to the Baltic Sea as war with Russia was imminent . Cumberland was involved in the attack on Bomarsund, Finland in...
and then
HMS PembrokeHMS Pembroke was a 74-gun third rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy, launched on 27 June 1812 at Blackwall Yard.She was fitted with screw propulsion in 1855, transferred to the Coastguard in 1858, and used as a base ship from 1887....
in the
Baltic SeaThe Baltic Sea is a brackish mediterranean sea located in Northern Europe, from 53°N to 66°N latitude and from 20°E to 26°E longitude. It is bounded by the Scandinavian Peninsula, the mainland of Europe, and the Danish islands. It drains into the Kattegat by way of the Øresund, the Great Belt and...
during the
Crimean WarThe Crimean War was a conflict fought between the Russian Empire and an alliance of the French Empire, the British Empire, the Ottoman Empire, and the Kingdom of Sardinia. The war was part of a long-running contest between the major European powers for influence over territories of the declining...
. He also commanded
HMS VictoryHMS Victory is a 104-gun first-rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy, laid down in 1759 and launched in 1765. She is most famous as Lord Nelson's flagship at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805....
, HMS
Hero and then
HMY Victoria and AlbertHMY Victoria and Albert, a 360 foot steamer launched 16 January 1855, was a Royal Yacht of the Sovereign of the United Kingdom until 1900, owned and operated by the Royal Navy. She displaced 2,470 tons, and could make 15 knots on her paddles...
.
Promoted to
Rear AdmiralRear admiral is a naval commissioned officer rank above that of a commodore and captain, and below that of a vice admiral. It is generally regarded as the lowest of the "admiral" ranks, which are also sometimes referred to as "flag officers" or "flag ranks"...
in 1863, Seymour served as a
Third Naval LordThe Third Sea Lord and Controller of the Navy was formerly the Naval Lord and member of the Board of Admiralty responsible for procurement and matériel in the British Royal Navy...
between 1866 and 1868. He also sat as
Member of ParliamentA Member of Parliament is a representative of the voters to a :parliament. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, the term applies specifically to members of the lower house, as upper houses often have a different title, such as senate, and thus also have different titles for its members,...
for
AntrimAntrim is former UK Parliament constituency in Ireland. It was a two member constituency and existed in two periods, 1801–1885 and 1922-1950.-Boundaries:...
from 1865 to 1869 and in Parliament he advocated road improvements outside the
Victoria and Albert MuseumThe Victoria and Albert Museum , set in the Brompton district of The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, London, England, is the world's largest museum of decorative arts and design, housing a permanent collection of over 4.5 million objects...
.
Family
Seymour married Sophia Margaret, daughter of Derick Hoste, in 1861. They had two sons and three daughters. His Daughter Alexandra married Sir Ian Heathcoat-Amory, 2nd Baronet, and was the mother of
Derick Heathcoat-Amory, 1st Viscount AmoryDerick Heathcoat-Amory, 1st Viscount Amory was a British Conservative politician. He served as Chancellor of the Exchequer from 1958 to 1960 and as Chancellor of the University of Exeter from 1972 to 1981.-Background and education:...
. Seymour died in July 1869, aged 51. Sophia Margaret remained a widow until her death in May 1917.