Philip Wodehouse (Royal Navy officer)

Wodehouse cycled through a series of frigate commands towards the end of the French Revolutionary Wars, including HMS Mignonne which he had to burn as useless in 1797.

[2][3][4] The first recorded service of Wodehouse in the Royal Navy is his promotion to lieutenant on 6 January 1794, after which he served in the Mediterranean Fleet under Vice-Admiral Sir John Jervis.

[10] Mignonne was an ex-French ship that had been captured by the British at the Siege of Toulon in 1793, and she was found to be so decrepit that Wodehouse was forced to burn her as useless at Portoferraio on 31 July 1797.

[15] In the following year Resistance was ordered out to the Mediterranean; early in the morning of 31 May the ship was wrecked on the Portuguese coast near Cape St Vincent after striking rocks.

He continued in that post until August 1805, at which point he was given command of the 64-gun ship of the line HMS Intrepid which had recently completed a refit at Deptford Dockyard.

Wodehouse took Intrepid out to the Mediterranean, where in June 1806 she formed part of Rear-Admiral Sidney Smith's squadron supporting the defence against the French invasion of Naples.

[18][19] Having returned to the Mediterranean, on 21 October Cumberland was serving under Collingwood blockading Toulon when François-André Baudin escaped that port with a squadron including three ships of the line.

He was discovered by the British on 23 October and Collingwood ordered Rear-Admiral George Martin to chase the French squadron with eight of the best sailing ships in the fleet, which included Cumberland.

The French force was defended by several small warships and was covered by soldiers on the beach and forts above it, but by daylight on 1 November all the ships had been either captured or destroyed.

Wodehouse continued with Cumberland in the Mediterranean until July 1811 when, having at some point been wounded, he handed over to Captain Robert Otway and withdrew from sea-service.

[2][18][25] This position, the senior-most of the Navy Board in Halifax, gave Wodehouse control over the Royal Naval Dockyard there; he was in command of all financial, administrative, building, and repair work relating to it.

Wodehouse began a campaign to convince the Navy Board to release funds to him for repairs, arguing that most of the dockyard was "in the most defective state".

[32][33] The Navy Board decided in May the same year to close the dockyard and use its remaining facilities as a supply depot, it being surplus to peacetime requirements.

[34] Described by the historian Julian Gwyn as "intelligent, warm, and kind-hearted", with the closing Wodehouse received testimonials of affection from Halifax town, Nova Scotia Council, and his dockyard officers and clerks.