Orders, Decorations and Medals

A fine N.G.S. and First China War pair awarded to Vice-Admiral Sir Thomas Herbert, K.C.B., Royal Navy

Naval General Service 1793-1840, 2 clasps, Guadaloupe, The Potomac 17 Aug. 1814 (Thos. Herbert, Lieut. R.N.); China 1842 (Thomas Herbert, Captain, H.M.S. Calliope) light contact marks, otherwise very fine and better (2)

Ex Payne Collection.

Thomas Herbert was born in February 1793 at Cahernan, County Kerry, where the Herbert family had been seated since the reign of Charles II. He entered the Royal Navy in July 1803, as a 1st Class Volunteer on board the Excellent, becoming Midshipman the following July. After assisting at the defence of Gaeta and the capture of Capri, he removed to the Blonde on the West Indies Station, where he witnessed the reduction, in December 1807, of the Danish West India Islands and contributed to the capture of five privateers, carrying 58 guns and 515 men. On 1 August 1809, as a reward for his conduct as prize-master of the L’Alert, of 20 guns and 149 men, he was nominated to a Lieutenancy by Sir Alex Cochrane in his flagship Neptune. He subsequently served in the Pompée on the West India, Home and Mediterranean Stations, and then became 1st Lieutenant of the Euryalus, in which he served until the close of the American War. He obtained the official mention of Sir Janes A. Gordon for the ability and conspicuous exertions he displayed throughout the operations on the river Potomac, including the capture of Fort Washington and of the city of Alexandria. In October 1814, Herbert, who had by that time been more than 20 times engaged with the enemy, in cutting out affairs and otherwise, and had been thrice wounded, was advanced to the rank of Commander.

In the Tamar, in 1823, Herbert succeeded in destroying three piratical vessels on the coasts of Cuba and Yucatan. This was his last seagoing appointment until November 1837, when he was appointed to the Calliope and ordered to the Brazils where he subsequently assumed command of the naval force in the Rio de la Plata for the protection of the British interests at Buenos Ayres and Monte Video during the blockade of the former place by a French squadron. In January 1840, he took Calliope round Cape Horn to Valparaiso, whence, in the following June, he sailed for China, encountering en route a typhoon, which the Calliope was only able to survive through the extreme exertions of her Officers and crew.

Arriving in the Canton River on 10 October, Captain Herbert immediately assumed command of the blockading force. On 7 January 1841, having been placed in charge of the advanced squadron off the Boca Tigris, he conducted the attack on the enemy’s forts at Chuenpee, annihilating eleven powerful junks, the flower of the Chinese Navy. On the 23rd February, being at the time on board the Nemesis, he effected the destructionof a 20-gun battery at the back of the island of Anunghoy. Three days later, back in the Calliope, he led the operations against the celebrated Bogue Forts where, on the 27th, with Herald, Alligator, Modeste, Sulphur, Nemesis and Madagascar under his orders, he attacked the enemy’s camp, fort and ship ‘Cambridge,’ bearing the Chinese Admiral’s flag, at their position below Whampoa Reach, where 98 guns were destroyed. On the 13th, after capturing the last fort protective of the approaches to Canton, Captain Herbert’s squadron advanced towards the city, and on the 18th attacked all the batteries and flotilla in its immediate vicinity; the former of which, in the course of two and a half hours, were in succession destroyed, and the latter either burnt or dispersed; thus enabling the British to plant the Union Jack on the walls of the factory, and placing totally in their power the huge capital of Quang-Tong.

On the renewall of hostilities against Canton, the following May, the Chinese, on the night of the 21st, made a vigorous attack with fire-rafts and armed boats, and from several masked and newly raised batteries, on the British shipping there, still commanded by Captain Herbert. They were, however, totally defeated, and on the next day their batteries were dismantled and their floating armament ruined. On the 26th, the water defences between the Factories and Howqua’s Fort, mounting 64 guns, were levelled and forcible possession taken of their naval arsenal and war junks.

In the course of August and October 1841, in the Blenheim, he assisted, with great distinction, at the capture of Amoy, the retaking of Chusan and the reduction of Chinghae. On the latter occasion he landed in command of the light column of attack, consisting of 700 seamen, marines and troops, that stormed and carried the citadel on the left bank of the Tinghae river; General Sir Hugh Gough, with the land forces, performing a similar feat against the formidable works on the right bank. Captain Herbert, who was next present at the surrender of Ningpo, and subsequently accompanied several reconnoitring parties up the Tinghae, returned to Hong Kong from off Ningpo and Chusan in February 1842, and resumed command of the squadron in the Canton river. In July he left Hong Kong in a steamer, for the Yang-tse-Kiang, for the purpose of visiting Nanking, where he remained until H.M. Plenipotentiary, in October, took leave of the Imperial Commissioner.

Captain Herbert, who was nominated a C.B. on 29 June 1840, was, in recognition of his brilliant service in China, rewarded with the dignity of a K.C.B. on 14 October 1841. He became Rear-Admiral in October 1852, and Vice-Admiral of the White in December 1857. He died about 1860.