Charles Sawyer : well connected but socially invisible
Sarlania set off something with her post on Charles Sawyer and his court martial for improper relationships with his crew and in the discussion over why he might have got off lightly in not being hanged from the yard arm. I began to see both from Anteros' comments and what I could research that despite Archie Cowan's honest reflecting of the connections of Sawyer the recorders had very effectively kept it out of the pedigrees and the like and certainly out of the naval records.
But the digital revolution in fields genealogical can find corners that the Admiralty board would not think that anyone would find. This is a story of what a will can tell..or two wills of a father and son who died within weeks of one another
TITLE: Charles Sawyer: well connected exile
WORDS: 2160
RATING: gen
SUMMARY: this is not a fic,but a mixture of research information, and musings thereon. It is long but hopefully connects up some corners
Charles Sawyer
The most well known figures by the surname Sawyer in the naval world at the time of Charles Sawyers'trial were Admiral Sir Herbert Sawyer and his eldest son of whom much is written. It was Herbert Sawyer senior who was by then quite frail and unwell. He was a hero of the American war and much else and by 1795 was made full Admiral, but was unable to take on any official posting due to his health. His son, Herbert, was at this time a captain, being roughly a contemporary of Edward Pellew ( who was born in 1757) as he was born in 1763.He became an Admiral in his turn and died in 1833 aged 70.
Herbert Sawyer senior was famed for an incident in his younger days which was romantic in both senses of the word.He and Philemon Pownall, later to be Pellew's mentor and friend, were young captains who were courting the two daughters of an Exeter/Lisbon merchant named Lewis Majendie who had business interests in Lisbon, including, I think wine importing.
The two were approved of for their valour and general character but seen as too poor to be husband material. That is till the gallant captains were able to capture a prize ship which turned out not to be carrying rice like poor Horatio's first command but gold bullion. Pownall and Sawyre each made over £65,000 out of it and even the lowliest seaman's share would have been well over £400 per man -a sum that must have made no small number of them very stunned - even by 1815 the pension of a discharged wounded able seaman was only £10 a year- to have 40 times that all at once must have seemed somewhat out of this world!
Needless to say it made the Majendie sisters suitors a lot more acceptable, especially since the Lisbon earthquake affected Mr Majendie's business adversely! Philemon Pownall was married to Jane Majendie in September 1762 in Gibraltar.
I have not yet found the Sawyer /Majendie marriage although it may be on the same day as the wedding information comes from a very unlikely source. That is, that it is not from the wedding registers but from a biographical note on an auction catalogue for a piece of fine craft work made by Jane Pownall which has quite a scholarly provenance page.
This miniature classical temple is quite an illustration of how Pownall and Jane liked elegance and style and used his wealth to make a very pleasant home. They were both painted by the highly fashionable Joshua Reynolds. Jane was painted as was the fashion at the time for society beauties - to be painted as one of the godesses of Olympus. In her case as Hebe, cup-bearer to the Gods Meanwhile Philemon ..was painted in his naval uniform, though due to exigencies of naval life it took Reynolds three years to catch up with his sitter long enough to finish it ! It was from Pownall perhaps that the somewhat wild young midshipman with a reputation for a hot temper and good boxing skills by name of Ned Pellew, first learned the aesthetics of an elegant aft cabin and keeping a good table for which he became known in later life.
Herbert Sawyer's eldest son Herbert was born in 1763 but there are baptismal records which show that a Charles Sawyer, son of a Herbert Sawyer, was baptised in 1765 or 1766 he but on 6th January making him born in 1765 as it is likely the baptism was a few weeks after the birth though not certain. The actual record may in fact state both dates. This fits with an age given for Charles Sawyer by one of the reference books Anteros mentioned. Herbert is often described as the eldestchild and even eldest son and usually there the description of the family stops. It stops because all the interest centered in later years around him. But Charles looks at first like a younger brother slightly overshadowed by the elder- not unlike Israel Pellew.
However it is the will of Charles Sawyer,described as " of Southwark" and "but now of San Giorgio in the kingdom of Naples" that tells most of the rest of this story. After his disgrace at the court martial which eventually happened in the Autumn of 1796 ( now it is clear that there were reasons for Nelson and others to temporize and procrastinate over the whole event)
Charles may well have gone to Naples.
Naples was a place full of assorted expatriated people - of many and various characters but many of them vaguely raffish in the eyes of more homebound people and the choice of Sir William Hamilton and his wife Emma as the ambassadorial couple did nothing to damp that down.. Emma in particular ! Nelson himself was to call it " this country of fiddlers and poets, whores and scoundrels " and that was even while he was falling in love and into bed with Emma under her husbands nose. But it was the kind of place that Charles Sawyer, a man with a reputation to live down or up to, could perhaps expect to at least get in something of a toe -hold.
Although Nelson had spoken in dispatches of Sawyer being " not fit to be seen" by the viceroy of Corsica until he had cleared his name and there was clearly a sense that it was hoped by all that he would just shuffle off somewhere and be lost to view as a real person; perhaps Naples was a good an exile as any at that time.
Charles Sawyer's will is written on the 27th June 1798 which is also,the probate application tells us, the day of his death so it was perhaps made with some struggle.He describes himself as sick and weak in body - though this kind of statement is usually as here, merely a prelude to the statement of mental fitness. He was evidently very ill however and fairly alone perhaps , given that his first bequest and thought is for one Vicenzo Daniele, his servant whom he thanks for faithful service. his brother is mentioned later but in connection mainly with winding up his affairs in England.
It does not sound like a man surrounded by family, friends and lovers to write first about the valet - unless he were also a friend and lover of course and we do not know that riddle at the moment!
Sick and dying,aged only 33, and only two years after his trial at thecourt martial- it had resonances, at least to me reading this will, and its story, to that of the disgraced Oscar Wilde longing for freedom in Reading Gaol and then living so short a time in the freedom of Paris afterward...Almost fading away. That is not to make Sawyer into a hero as Wilde is for many. Much of Sawyer's life over the issue is not illuminating and indeed Sawyer's abuse of his leadership meant his relationships were probably exploitative, but nevertheless one feels there is a sense that perhaps far from his home in Southwark and( possibly )outlawed by most people there was not a great deal left to live for.
He writes : In the name of God. AMEN,I ,Charles Sawyer, of Union Hall in Southwark in the Kingdom of Great Britain but now of the town of San Giorgio in the kingdom of Naples, Italy,being sick and weak in body but of perfect mind and memory do hereby make and order this my last will and testament.
Imprimis :i give and bequeath to my servant Vicenzo Daniele twelve -------------(?)[I have not yet been able to transcribe the word missing here] My ring and locket and one dozen of my shirts and other wearing apparel in consideration of his faithful service.
Item I give and bequeath to my brother Herbert Sawyer the largest of my gold watches and the smallest gold watch I give to Revd Sigr Gennaro Mazza.
Item I give and bequeath unto my brother Herbert Sawyer all my plate and I hereby appoint my heir to all money,effects and properties I may have in England or elsewhere,excepting only such legacies as are mentioned in this will and testament.
Item i give and bequeath to Captain Squires of the Ariadne Frigate now in Naples Harbour my sword, a brace of pistols, a chart of the Gulf of St Lawrence and a map of Europe.
These simple bequests are all - then the document continues with the witnesses and the appointment of the consular personnel to deal with the will. It is then followed by a sworn statement by Herbert Sawyer on the 6th February of the following year 1799 where he is granted administration rights. Quite likely that was the first time that Herbert could get free to come and deal with it but it further enhances Charles' probable loneliness at the time of death.
And what of Vicenzo ? He is left not only clothes but a ring and a locket?- who knows whether that tells a story of more than simply affectionate service. If it were a picture of Charles himself which it contained it might just be similar to this miniature of Herbert Sawyer the younger by the dutch artist, Buch.
Charles evidently thought that his brother would want to keep his watch or else would have likely given that to someone else too but there is some more of the real testmentary evidence for the exile statsus of Charles Sawyer as well as from the will.
first again from the will - the bequest of valued sea faring gifts - the sword ( my slight query there is what sword ?- surely his naval one he would had to hand in ?
As much as Nelson's copy of Josephus had to be returned, everything he had borrowed or been loaned as part of a captain's life.But then most gentlemen wore daytime and or dress swords in that era I guess.
His continued ownership of seacharts and maps is understandable- but to give them to Captain Matthew Squires of the Ariadne - is he or old friend or more likely is he the nearest British ship and he thinks it practical to give the shipboard things where they will be used. Many of his friends may have been more fairweather and disappeared once things meant he would be dismissed the service. Not being seen could be a two- way process.
And was there a more profound sense in which Charles Sawyer was an exile? As he was very ill towards the end of June, it seems likely that there will have been time for news to have reached him that his father had died at the beginning of the month.The ailing admiral had died right at the start of the month, the substance of his will mainly dating fron 1797 with two later codicils. Indeed probate of his estate was obtained on the 26th June, the day before Charles Sawyer himself died.
The Admiral's will, which runs to nine pages, nowhere mentions that he has a son called Charles.Of course there may be other reasons than the obvious one. But the fact that the will was made after the trial,and may well have been a revision of a previous will still looks as if, to his father at least,Charles was officially dead.
This may still be conjectural and it is not the end of the story - I intend to be more certain when time and documents permit that Charles really is the son of Herbert and Ann Susanna Sawyer and brother of Herbert, though there seems little doubt really. At worst it may yet turn out he was a cousin, but the evidence of his own will seems fairly conclusive.
But it does look as if Charles Sawyer lived out a short, semi visible existence in Naples, dead to some of his own family and dying,leaving a few possessions to a loyal servant at the age of 33 or so. Perhaps he did not get off very lightly after all.That same Autumn of the year Charles Sawyer died in Naples,Nelson, who had made the comments indicative of the social exclusion which was to be Sawyer's lot arrived in triumph in Naples as a conquering hero and soon began his relationship with Emma Hamilton.Nelson wrote to Admiral Collingwood " Naples is a dangerous place. we must get away from her"
Certainly a dangerous place to claim any patch of the moral high ground. The whole thing would be a cautionary tale, mulled over by many including the captain who had been nurtured by the uncle of Charles Sawyer.
some relevant Documents are :
the will of Herbert Sawyer Esq Admiral in His Majesty's Navy, PROB 11/1309 and
the will of Charles Sawyer, formerly of Southwark and now of St Giorgio,Naples, PROB11/1319 in the PCC wills at the PRO Kew.
And the sales catalogue of Malletts auctioneers with a provenance note for a Shellwork temple made by Jane Pownall,nee Majendie ( 1745-1778) wife of Philemon Pownall, whom she married in 1762.
The NMM pages on Nelson and the Hamiltons in Naples.
But the digital revolution in fields genealogical can find corners that the Admiralty board would not think that anyone would find. This is a story of what a will can tell..or two wills of a father and son who died within weeks of one another
TITLE: Charles Sawyer: well connected exile
WORDS: 2160
RATING: gen
SUMMARY: this is not a fic,but a mixture of research information, and musings thereon. It is long but hopefully connects up some corners
Charles Sawyer
The most well known figures by the surname Sawyer in the naval world at the time of Charles Sawyers'trial were Admiral Sir Herbert Sawyer and his eldest son of whom much is written. It was Herbert Sawyer senior who was by then quite frail and unwell. He was a hero of the American war and much else and by 1795 was made full Admiral, but was unable to take on any official posting due to his health. His son, Herbert, was at this time a captain, being roughly a contemporary of Edward Pellew ( who was born in 1757) as he was born in 1763.He became an Admiral in his turn and died in 1833 aged 70.
Herbert Sawyer senior was famed for an incident in his younger days which was romantic in both senses of the word.He and Philemon Pownall, later to be Pellew's mentor and friend, were young captains who were courting the two daughters of an Exeter/Lisbon merchant named Lewis Majendie who had business interests in Lisbon, including, I think wine importing.
The two were approved of for their valour and general character but seen as too poor to be husband material. That is till the gallant captains were able to capture a prize ship which turned out not to be carrying rice like poor Horatio's first command but gold bullion. Pownall and Sawyre each made over £65,000 out of it and even the lowliest seaman's share would have been well over £400 per man -a sum that must have made no small number of them very stunned - even by 1815 the pension of a discharged wounded able seaman was only £10 a year- to have 40 times that all at once must have seemed somewhat out of this world!
Needless to say it made the Majendie sisters suitors a lot more acceptable, especially since the Lisbon earthquake affected Mr Majendie's business adversely! Philemon Pownall was married to Jane Majendie in September 1762 in Gibraltar.
I have not yet found the Sawyer /Majendie marriage although it may be on the same day as the wedding information comes from a very unlikely source. That is, that it is not from the wedding registers but from a biographical note on an auction catalogue for a piece of fine craft work made by Jane Pownall which has quite a scholarly provenance page.
This miniature classical temple is quite an illustration of how Pownall and Jane liked elegance and style and used his wealth to make a very pleasant home. They were both painted by the highly fashionable Joshua Reynolds. Jane was painted as was the fashion at the time for society beauties - to be painted as one of the godesses of Olympus. In her case as Hebe, cup-bearer to the Gods Meanwhile Philemon ..was painted in his naval uniform, though due to exigencies of naval life it took Reynolds three years to catch up with his sitter long enough to finish it ! It was from Pownall perhaps that the somewhat wild young midshipman with a reputation for a hot temper and good boxing skills by name of Ned Pellew, first learned the aesthetics of an elegant aft cabin and keeping a good table for which he became known in later life.
Herbert Sawyer's eldest son Herbert was born in 1763 but there are baptismal records which show that a Charles Sawyer, son of a Herbert Sawyer, was baptised in 1765 or 1766 he but on 6th January making him born in 1765 as it is likely the baptism was a few weeks after the birth though not certain. The actual record may in fact state both dates. This fits with an age given for Charles Sawyer by one of the reference books Anteros mentioned. Herbert is often described as the eldestchild and even eldest son and usually there the description of the family stops. It stops because all the interest centered in later years around him. But Charles looks at first like a younger brother slightly overshadowed by the elder- not unlike Israel Pellew.
However it is the will of Charles Sawyer,described as " of Southwark" and "but now of San Giorgio in the kingdom of Naples" that tells most of the rest of this story. After his disgrace at the court martial which eventually happened in the Autumn of 1796 ( now it is clear that there were reasons for Nelson and others to temporize and procrastinate over the whole event)
Charles may well have gone to Naples.
Naples was a place full of assorted expatriated people - of many and various characters but many of them vaguely raffish in the eyes of more homebound people and the choice of Sir William Hamilton and his wife Emma as the ambassadorial couple did nothing to damp that down.. Emma in particular ! Nelson himself was to call it " this country of fiddlers and poets, whores and scoundrels " and that was even while he was falling in love and into bed with Emma under her husbands nose. But it was the kind of place that Charles Sawyer, a man with a reputation to live down or up to, could perhaps expect to at least get in something of a toe -hold.
Although Nelson had spoken in dispatches of Sawyer being " not fit to be seen" by the viceroy of Corsica until he had cleared his name and there was clearly a sense that it was hoped by all that he would just shuffle off somewhere and be lost to view as a real person; perhaps Naples was a good an exile as any at that time.
Charles Sawyer's will is written on the 27th June 1798 which is also,the probate application tells us, the day of his death so it was perhaps made with some struggle.He describes himself as sick and weak in body - though this kind of statement is usually as here, merely a prelude to the statement of mental fitness. He was evidently very ill however and fairly alone perhaps , given that his first bequest and thought is for one Vicenzo Daniele, his servant whom he thanks for faithful service. his brother is mentioned later but in connection mainly with winding up his affairs in England.
It does not sound like a man surrounded by family, friends and lovers to write first about the valet - unless he were also a friend and lover of course and we do not know that riddle at the moment!
Sick and dying,aged only 33, and only two years after his trial at thecourt martial- it had resonances, at least to me reading this will, and its story, to that of the disgraced Oscar Wilde longing for freedom in Reading Gaol and then living so short a time in the freedom of Paris afterward...Almost fading away. That is not to make Sawyer into a hero as Wilde is for many. Much of Sawyer's life over the issue is not illuminating and indeed Sawyer's abuse of his leadership meant his relationships were probably exploitative, but nevertheless one feels there is a sense that perhaps far from his home in Southwark and( possibly )outlawed by most people there was not a great deal left to live for.
He writes : In the name of God. AMEN,I ,Charles Sawyer, of Union Hall in Southwark in the Kingdom of Great Britain but now of the town of San Giorgio in the kingdom of Naples, Italy,being sick and weak in body but of perfect mind and memory do hereby make and order this my last will and testament.
Imprimis :i give and bequeath to my servant Vicenzo Daniele twelve -------------(?)[I have not yet been able to transcribe the word missing here] My ring and locket and one dozen of my shirts and other wearing apparel in consideration of his faithful service.
Item I give and bequeath to my brother Herbert Sawyer the largest of my gold watches and the smallest gold watch I give to Revd Sigr Gennaro Mazza.
Item I give and bequeath unto my brother Herbert Sawyer all my plate and I hereby appoint my heir to all money,effects and properties I may have in England or elsewhere,excepting only such legacies as are mentioned in this will and testament.
Item i give and bequeath to Captain Squires of the Ariadne Frigate now in Naples Harbour my sword, a brace of pistols, a chart of the Gulf of St Lawrence and a map of Europe.
These simple bequests are all - then the document continues with the witnesses and the appointment of the consular personnel to deal with the will. It is then followed by a sworn statement by Herbert Sawyer on the 6th February of the following year 1799 where he is granted administration rights. Quite likely that was the first time that Herbert could get free to come and deal with it but it further enhances Charles' probable loneliness at the time of death.
And what of Vicenzo ? He is left not only clothes but a ring and a locket?- who knows whether that tells a story of more than simply affectionate service. If it were a picture of Charles himself which it contained it might just be similar to this miniature of Herbert Sawyer the younger by the dutch artist, Buch.
Charles evidently thought that his brother would want to keep his watch or else would have likely given that to someone else too but there is some more of the real testmentary evidence for the exile statsus of Charles Sawyer as well as from the will.
first again from the will - the bequest of valued sea faring gifts - the sword ( my slight query there is what sword ?- surely his naval one he would had to hand in ?
As much as Nelson's copy of Josephus had to be returned, everything he had borrowed or been loaned as part of a captain's life.But then most gentlemen wore daytime and or dress swords in that era I guess.
His continued ownership of seacharts and maps is understandable- but to give them to Captain Matthew Squires of the Ariadne - is he or old friend or more likely is he the nearest British ship and he thinks it practical to give the shipboard things where they will be used. Many of his friends may have been more fairweather and disappeared once things meant he would be dismissed the service. Not being seen could be a two- way process.
And was there a more profound sense in which Charles Sawyer was an exile? As he was very ill towards the end of June, it seems likely that there will have been time for news to have reached him that his father had died at the beginning of the month.The ailing admiral had died right at the start of the month, the substance of his will mainly dating fron 1797 with two later codicils. Indeed probate of his estate was obtained on the 26th June, the day before Charles Sawyer himself died.
The Admiral's will, which runs to nine pages, nowhere mentions that he has a son called Charles.Of course there may be other reasons than the obvious one. But the fact that the will was made after the trial,and may well have been a revision of a previous will still looks as if, to his father at least,Charles was officially dead.
This may still be conjectural and it is not the end of the story - I intend to be more certain when time and documents permit that Charles really is the son of Herbert and Ann Susanna Sawyer and brother of Herbert, though there seems little doubt really. At worst it may yet turn out he was a cousin, but the evidence of his own will seems fairly conclusive.
But it does look as if Charles Sawyer lived out a short, semi visible existence in Naples, dead to some of his own family and dying,leaving a few possessions to a loyal servant at the age of 33 or so. Perhaps he did not get off very lightly after all.That same Autumn of the year Charles Sawyer died in Naples,Nelson, who had made the comments indicative of the social exclusion which was to be Sawyer's lot arrived in triumph in Naples as a conquering hero and soon began his relationship with Emma Hamilton.Nelson wrote to Admiral Collingwood " Naples is a dangerous place. we must get away from her"
Certainly a dangerous place to claim any patch of the moral high ground. The whole thing would be a cautionary tale, mulled over by many including the captain who had been nurtured by the uncle of Charles Sawyer.
some relevant Documents are :
the will of Herbert Sawyer Esq Admiral in His Majesty's Navy, PROB 11/1309 and
the will of Charles Sawyer, formerly of Southwark and now of St Giorgio,Naples, PROB11/1319 in the PCC wills at the PRO Kew.
And the sales catalogue of Malletts auctioneers with a provenance note for a Shellwork temple made by Jane Pownall,nee Majendie ( 1745-1778) wife of Philemon Pownall, whom she married in 1762.
The NMM pages on Nelson and the Hamiltons in Naples.