George Brydges Rodney 1st Baron Rodney

George Brydges Rodney Rodney, 1st Baron 1719-92, British admiral. He served with distinction in the Seven Years War (1757-63), his most notable achievement being the capture (1762) of Martinique in the West Indies. Pressed by debts, he lived in France from 1775 to 1778. In 1778 he was recalled, made an admiral, and dispatched again to the West Indies. On the way he defeated (1780) a Spanish fleet off Cape St. Vincent, thus relieving Gibraltar, and became a national hero. In 1781 he captured St. Eustatius in the West Indies and confiscated large quantities of goods belonging to British merchants illegally trading with the American revolutionary forces. He was hounded with lawsuits for the rest of his life by the outraged merchants. Because of ill health, he resigned (1781) his command to Samuel Hood , but he returned to the West Indies in 1782 and won a resounding victory over the French fleet of Admiral de Grasse off Dominica. He was rewarded with a peerage.

Bibliography: See G. B. Mundy, The Life and Correspondence of the late Admiral Lord Rodney (1973); biographies by D. Macintyre (1962) and D. Spinney (1969).

Rodney, George Brydges (1719–92). Admiral. Always solicitous towards the concerns of the lower deck, Rodney conspicuously failed in his relations with brother officers, and his ill‐starred quest for wealth could prejudice his commands out of a greed for prize money. His service spanned the mid‐18th‐cent. wars and he became well acquainted with the West Indies theatre. Promotion to rear‐admiral in 1759 did not afford future financial security, and during 1775–8 Rodney was effectively bankrupt and self‐exiled. The American War proved his salvation, and with his relief of Gibraltar (1779) and his saving of Jamaica through his defeat of de Grasse at ‘the Saints’ on 12 April 1782, Rodney's lasting fame, though not his fortune, was assured.

Rodney, George Brydges (1719–92). Admiral. Rodney's family was distantly connected to the fabulously rich and influential James Brydges, duke of Chandos, and this may account for Rodney's rise to a naval captaincy at the age of 23. Yet he was born to straitened circumstances, and a certain resentment in his complex character may not have been helped by a reputed education at Harrow School. Always solicitous towards the concerns of the lower deck, Rodney conspicuously failed in his relations with brother officers, and his ill-starred quest for wealth could prejudice his commands out of a greed for prize money. His service spanned the mid-18th-cent. wars and he became well acquainted with the West Indies theatre; at home he was an assiduous applicant for parliamentary seats. Promotion to rear-admiral in 1759 did not afford future financial security, and during 1775–8 Rodney was effectively bankrupt and self-exiled. Yet the special exigencies of the American War proved his salvation, and with his relief of Gibraltar (1779) and his saving of Jamaica through his defeat of de Grasse at ‘the Saints’ on 12 April 1782, Rodney's lasting fame, though significantly not his fortune, was assured. Created a peer, his closing years were dogged by sickness and litigation.

David Denis Aldridge