Author: Herbert, Charles
Biography:
HERBERT, Charles (1774-1808: ancestry.com)
The Honourable Charles Herbert, second son of Henry Herbert, Earl of Carnarvon, and his wife Elizabeth Alicia Wyndham, was born on 5 July 1774 and baptised at St. George’s, Hanover Square, London, on 31 July. William Herbert (q.v.) was his younger brother, and Henry John George Herbert (q.v.) his nephew. The family had many naval and political connections, and outside the family circle, Herbert would dedicate his one collection of poems to Vice-Admiral Sir Erasmus Gower (1742-1814), thanking him for his “almost parental” kindness to him from childhood. He joined the Royal Navy as a midshipman in 1790 (lt. 1793, cdr. 1794, capt. 1795). His first command was the Resource in the West Indies in 1794; during the Napoleonic Wars, his most successful was the Amelia (1797-1802). He married Bridget Augusta Byng, fourth daughter of John Byng, 5th Viscount Torrington, on 9 July 1800 at her parish church at Binfield, Berkshire. They had one daughter. In 1806 he was returned to Parliament as the member for Wilton—a seat in the gift of his kinsman the Earl of Pembroke—but was displaced after one term, and the seat bestowed instead on his uncle Capt. Charles Herbert (1743-1816). Herbert unexpectedly went to Spain to fight in the Peninsular War and was drowned in Gijon Harbour with a companion on 12 Sept. 1808 when their boat overturned. He was buried in the churchyard of the Church of the Ascension at Burghclere, Hampshire. (ancestry.com 1 May 2022; findmypast.com 1 May 2022; historyofparliamentonline.org 1 May 2022; OJ 19 Jul. 1800)
Other Names:
- the Hon. Capt. Herbert