Richard Avery Hornsby

Captain Richard Avery Hornsby (died 1818) was an 18th-century British military figure, famous for successfully taking on a boat full of French pirates in 1744.

The Marquis of Brancas, with a crew of 75 French pirates, as well as ten guns, eight swivel cannons, and 300 small arms, spotted the Wrightson and Isabella off of the Dutch coast, and engaged the ship in combat on 13 June 1744.

When a shot from the British side caused the Brancas to sheer off, Hornsby put the Union Jack back up and led his crew in giving the pirates three rousing cheers.

At a ceremony held at Kensington Palace in September 1744, Hornsby was awarded a gold medal and a chain worth £100 by King George II for his bravery.

However, a search of the burial registers by local historian Paul Lanagan revealed that the Richard Hornsby who was buried in the churchyard had died in 1818 at the age of 67, meaning that he would have been seven years old at the time of the pirate incident.