{{Use dmy dates|date=January 2017}} {{Use British English|date=January 2017}} {{Infobox military person |honorific_prefix = Rear-Admiral |name = Frederick Thomas Pelham |honorific_suffix = {{postnominals|country=GBR|size=100%|CB}} |birth_date={{birth-date|2 August 1808}} |death_date={{death-date and age|21 June 1861|2 August 1808}} |birth_place= |death_place= Hove, East Sussex |image= |caption= |nickname= |allegiance= {{flagicon|United Kingdom}} United Kingdom |service_years= 1823 – 1861 |rank= Rear-Admiral |branch= 23px Royal Navy |commands={{HMS|Odin|1846|6}}<br>{{HMS|Blenheim|1813|6}}<br>{{HMS|Exmouth|1854|6}} |unit= |battles=Crimean War |awards=Companion of the Order of the Bath |other_work= }}
Rear-Admiral '''Frederick Thomas Pelham''', {{post-nominals|country=GBR|size=100%|CB}} (2 August 1808 – 21 June 1861) was a Royal Navy officer who went on to be Second Naval Lord.
==Career== He was the son of Thomas Pelham, 2nd Earl of Chichester (1756–1826), and Lady Mary Henrietta Juliana Osborne (1776–1862),<ref name=peerage>Mosley, Charles, editor. Burke's Peerage, Baronetage & Knightage, 107th edition, 3 volumes. Wilmington, Delaware, U.S.A.: Burke's Peerage (Genealogical Books) Ltd, 2003. Volume 2, page 2103</ref> and entered the navy on 27 June 1823.<ref name=loney>[http://www.pdavis.nl/ShowBiog.php?id=74 William Loney RN]</ref>
===Active Service=== He first served as a midshipman on HMS ''Sybille'' in the Mediterranean (including an attack on Greek pirates), was promoted to lieutenant in 1830, before serving with HMS ''Ferret'', until being promoted to commander on 21 September 1835.<ref name=loney/> He then served at that rank on {{HMS|Castor|1832|6}} off Spain's north coast during the Carlist War before receiving his first command, {{HMS|Tweed}}, in the same theatre in 1837 and 1838, being awarded the cross of San Fernando for his services.<ref name=peerage/><ref name=loney/> He rose to captain on 3 July 1840 and then commanded {{HMS|Odin|1846|6}}, a steam paddle frigate, in the Mediterranean Sea from 1847 to 1850.<ref name=loney/>
At the suggestion of Sir Hyde Parker,<ref name=odnb>[http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/21787/ Frederick Thomas Pelham at Oxford Dictionary of National Biography]</ref> he served as private secretary to the first Lord of the Admiralty, the Duke of Northumberland,<ref name=loney/> from March to December 1852, working against a government keen to keep defence spending down, against his own brother Lord Chichester's politics and connections with Sir Francis Baring, and against the political secretary Stafford O'Brien (testifying to the 1853 select committee checking O'Brien's handling of patronage in dockyard appointments).<ref name=odnb/> He was made commander of the Portsmouth steam reserve in 1853, participating at Bomarsund and other episodes of the 1854 Baltic campaign in that role from his flagship {{HMS|Blenheim|1813|6}}.<ref name=loney/> During the construction of {{HMS|Exmouth|1854|6}} he was appointed her commander,<ref name=loney/> but this putative post was cancelled when his friend Richard Saunders Dundas selected him for the second Baltic campaign as captain of the fleet.<ref name=loney/> In that role he headed the attack on Sveaborg (8–10 August), though a surveying officer on the expedition, Captain Bartholomew James Sulivan, blamed Pelham for making Dundas overcautious.<ref name=odnb/>
===Admiralty Service=== In 1855, he was appointed a Companion of the Order of the Bath.
Initially Sir Maurice Berkeley declined to take Pelham on at the Board of Admiralty, in December 1856, due to his connections with Northumberland,<ref name=odnb/> however Pelham joined the Board the following November as Fourth Naval Lord after Berkeley's retirement,<ref name=loney/> though left it four months later, in March 1858, having been promoted to rear admiral.<ref name=loney/> Under Dundas and the Duke of Somerset he joined the new Liberal board as Second Naval Lord in June 1859, remaining with it until resigning on grounds of ill health in early June 1861.<ref name=loney/>
==Death== [[File:Grave of Frederick Thomas Pelham in Highgate Cemetery.jpg|thumb|Grave of Frederick Thomas Pelham in Highgate Cemetery]] He died on 21 June 1861 and was buried on the western side of Highgate cemetery.<ref name=FC>{{cite book |last1=Cansick |first1=Frederick Teague |title=The Monumental Inscriptions of Middlesex Vol 2 |date=1872 |publisher=J Russell Smith |page=147 |url=https://archive.org/details/acollectioncuri03cansgoog/page/n180/mode/2up |access-date=15 October 2021}}</ref><ref name=odnb/>
==Family== He married Ellen Kate Mitchell on 26 July 1841, with whom he had:<ref name=peerage/> * Constance Mary Kate Pelham (died 5 January 1926) * Beatrice Emily Julia Pelham (died 27 February 1939) * Admiral Frederick Sidney Pelham (25 October 1854 – 19 October 1931)
==See also== * {{cite wikisource |first=William Richard |last=O'Byrne |chapter=Pelham, Frederick Thomas |title=A Naval Biographical Dictionary |year=1849 |publisher=John Murray}}
==References== {{reflist}}
{{s-start}} {{s-mil}} {{s-bef|before=Sir Alexander Milne }} {{s-ttl|title=Fourth Naval Lord |years=1857–1858}} {{s-aft|after=Sir James Drummond}} |- {{succession box|title=Second Naval Lord|before=Sir Richard Dundas|after=Sir Charles Eden|years=1859–1861}} {{end}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Pelham}} Category:1808 births Category:1861 deaths Category:Royal Navy admirals Category:Burials at Highgate Cemetery Category:Companions of the Order of the Bath Category:Laureate Cross of Saint Ferdinand Category:Younger sons of earls Category:Royal Navy personnel of the Crimean War Frederick Category:Lords of the Admiralty