{{Short description|British Royal Navy officer and politician}} {{Use British English|date=July 2017}} {{Use dmy dates|date=July 2017}} {{Infobox person | honorific_prefix = Captain | name = James Cornewall | image = James_Cornewall_from_NPG.jpg | birth_date = 1698 | birth_place = Moccas, Herefordshire | death_date = {{death date and age |df=yes|1744|2|11|1698|11}} | death_place = off Toulon, Mediterranean Sea | placeofburial = | spouse = Hannah Southwark | children = Thomas Cornewall {{Infobox military person | embed = yes | allegiance = {{flagcountry|Kingdom of Great Britain}} | service_years = 1691–1744 | rank = Captain | branch = {{navy|Kingdom of Great Britain}} | commands = {{HMS|Sheerness|1691|6}} <br /> {{HMS|Greyhound|1719|6}} <br /> {{HMS|Deptford|1732|6}} <br /> {{HMS|Greenwich|1666|6}} <br /> {{HMS|St Albans|1706|6}} <br /> {{HMS|Bedford|1698|6}} <br /> {{HMS|Marlborough|1706|6}} | battles = {{tree list}} * War of the Austrian Succession ** Battle of Toulon {{tree list/end}} }} }}
Captain '''James Cornewall''' ({{circa|1698}} – 11 February 1744) was a British Royal Navy officer and politician who became a national hero following his death in action at the Battle of Toulon in 1744. Cornewall's monument in Westminster Abbey was the first ever to be erected by the Parliament of Great Britain at public expense.
==Early life and career== Cornewall was born in 1698, the youngest son of Henry Cornewall and his second wife Susanna, and was baptised at Moccas on 17 November 1698.<ref name=corn>{{cite book|last1=Foljambe|first1=Cecil George|author1-link=Cecil Foljambe, 1st Earl of Liverpool|last2=Reade|first2=Compton|title=The House of Cornewall|date=1908|publisher=Jakeman and Carver|location=Hereford|pages=111–117|url=https://archive.org/stream/houseofcornewall00live#page/n137/mode/2up}}</ref>
His naval career began as a Volunteer-per-order, serving first upon {{HMS|Chatham|1691|6}} from March 1721 before transferring to {{HMS|Torbay|1693|6}} in December of the same year.<ref name=odnb>{{Cite ODNB|id=6329|title=Cornewall, James}}</ref> Three years later, he was given his first independent command, he was promoted to captain of the Fifth-rate {{HMS|Sheerness|1691|6}} on 3 April 1724.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Winfield|first1=Rif|title=British Warships in the Age of Sail, 1603–1714 : design, construction, careers and fates|date=2009|publisher=Seaforth|location=Barnsley|isbn=9781848320406}}</ref> He spent four years aboard this ship, principally in the waters off Boston, protecting trade and suppressing piracy. John Knox Laughton compares this phase of his life to "the opening chapters of Fenimore Cooper's ''Water Witch'' and ''Red Rover''."<ref name=dnb>{{cite DNB|wstitle=Cornewall, James |last=Laughton|first=John Knox|authorlink=John Knox Laughton|volume=12}}</ref>
While in Boston, Cornwall drew the ire of provincial authorities for heavy-handedness. When local authorities raised a crew and provincial naval vessel to hunt pirates in the summer of 1726, Cornwall stopped them and fired on the vessel when the provincial sailors refused to stop for him.
He returned to England in August 1728, and made an unsuccessful attempt to represent the seat of Weobley on 30 January 1730, losing to John Birch. When Birch was expelled from Parliament due to his involvement in the fraudulent sale of the Derwentwater estates,<ref name=birch>{{HistoryofParliament |1715 |last=Sedgewick|first=Romney|title=Birch, John (c.1666–1735)|url=http://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1715-1754/member/birch-john-1666-1735}}</ref> Cornewall stood again and defeated him on 14 April 1732.<ref name=hop>{{HistoryofParliament |1715 |last=Newman|first=A. N.|title=Cornewall, James (1698–1744)|url=http://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1715-1754/member/cornewall-james-1698-1744}}</ref> In December of that year he was back at sea, this time commanding {{HMS|Greyhound|1719|6}},<ref name=corn/><ref name=succ>Foljambe and Reade (1908) p.111 names this ship as {{HMS|Success|1712|6}}</ref> which he sailed to the coast of Morocco establishing friendly relations with the Barbary pirates of Salé and the bashaw of Tétouan.<ref name=dnb/>
In March 1734 he was back in England, where he unsuccessfully attempted to retain his seat in the General Election of that year, losing once again to John Birch.<ref name=hop/> In June he took command of {{HMS|Deptford|1732|6}} and served in the English Channel and was part of a fleet commanded by Sir John Norris sent to the Iberian Peninsula to protect Portugal from Spanish attack.<ref name=dnb/><ref>{{cite book|last1=Heathcote|first1=Tony|title=The British Admirals of the Fleet|date=2002|publisher=Cooper|location=Barnsley|isbn=0850528356|page=197}}</ref> Cornewall had sought to overturn the result of the 1734 election on the basis that "the right of election [at Weobley] was in the occupiers or owners of certain 'ancient vote-houses' and not in the householders at large." By the time the House came to consider this petition, Birch was no longer alive to defend his side of the argument, resulting in Cornewall once more being appointed to the seat on 3 March 1737.<ref name=weo>{{HistoryofParliament |1715 |last=Lea|first=R. S.|title=Weobley|url=http://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1715-1754/constituencies/weobley}}</ref>
He was not able to spend much time in the House, only recorded as voting twice and speaking once.<ref name=hop/> In early 1737 he was commander of {{HMS|Greenwich|1666|6}} and served off the West African coast, regulating British trade in the region. He was once rumoured to have personally transported a cargo of African slaves to Barbados, but the British Admiralty was unable to find any evidence to support the allegation.<ref name=dnb/>
In 1739 he was given command of {{HMS|St Albans|1706|6}} and sent to cruise the waters off the Azores with {{HMS|Weymouth|1736|6}} and prey upon Spanish ships. A plan that would have seen him lead a small flotilla to the China Seas fell through, and instead he was given command of {{HMS|Bedford|1698|6}} in 1741 and sent to the Mediterranean the following year with Admiral Thomas Mathews.<ref name=dnb/>
thumb|HMS ''Marlborough'' after the battle of Toulon In 1743, still sailing in Mathews' Mediterranean fleet, he took up his final command: {{HMS|Marlborough|1706|6}}. On 11 February 1744 he was next astern of Mathews' flagship, {{HMS|Namur|1697|6}}, during the botched Battle of Toulon. ''Marlborough'' and ''Namur'' bore the brunt of the Spanish fire, with ''Marlborough'' losing 43 killed and 120 wounded from its crew of 750 men.<ref name=dnb/> Amongst the killed was Cornewall, with both his legs carried away by a chain-shot early in the action, living only long enough "to express the agony he was in, by shaking his head at the surgeon."<ref>{{cite book|title=Narrative of the Proceedings of his Majesty's Fleet in the Mediterranean|date=1744|location=London|page=118|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=B25UAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA118|edition=3rd|last1=Mathews|first1=Thomas}}</ref> Command passed to his cousin,<ref>Technically, his third cousin once removed</ref> Frederick Cornewall, who was First Lieutenant aboard the ''Marlborough'', but he too was severely wounded and lost his right arm. Captain Cornewall was buried at sea.
News of Cornewall's death was greeted by a public show of grief comparable with that following the loss of Nelson sixty years later,<ref name=corn/> though the man had led a solid but unspectacular naval career. As Horace Walpole later put it, "In the present dearth of glory [Cornewall] is canonized, though poor man! he had been tried twice the year before for cowardice."<ref>{{cite book|editor1-last=Wright|editor1-first=John|editor2-last=Agar-Ellis|editor2-first=George|editor2-link=George Agar-Ellis, 1st Baron Dover|title=The Letters of Horace Walpole, Earl of Orford, Vol II: 1744–1753|date=1840|publisher=Richard Bentley|location=London|page=193|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=iRtEAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA193}}</ref>
==Family== [[File:Monument to James Cornewall, Westminster Abbey.jpg|thumb|The monument to Cornewall in Westminster Abbey]] Cornewall never married, but he had an Illegitimate son by a Mrs Hannah Southwark of Boston named Thomas Cornewall (d. 1796), to whom he left £4000 in his will,<ref name=corn/> {{Inflation|UK|4000|1744|r=-3|fmt=eq|cursign=£}}.{{Inflation/fn|UK}} Thomas would follow his father into the Royal Navy and became a Captain himself in 1757.<ref>{{cite web|last1=Harrison|first1=Simon|title=Thomas Cornwall|url=http://threedecks.org/index.php?display_type=show_crewman&id=271|website=Three Decks – Warships in the Age of Sail}}</ref> The bulk of James Cornewall's estate was left to his Half-brother Henry Cornewall, with instructions that it should pass to their brother Velters on Henry's death.<ref name=corn/>
==Memorials==
In 1747 a monument to Cornewall was commissioned to stand in Westminster Abbey. Designed by Sir Robert Taylor, it was unveiled in 1749 and was the first ever monument to be erected by Parliament at public expense,<ref>{{cite book|last1=Coutu|first1=Joan|title=Persuasion and Propaganda: Monuments and the Eighteenth-Century British Empire|date=2006|publisher=McGill-Queen's University Press|location=Montréal|isbn=9780773531307|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ccwzxJyFJ0sC&pg=PA160|page=160}}</ref> as well as probably being the earliest representation of Britannia on a monument.<ref name=abbey/> It stood at the West end of the nave near the entrance of St George's Chapel. In 1882 the monument was modified to make a doorway into the chapel, and in 1932 it was moved altogether when St George's was made a war memorial chapel. It now stands in the entrance archway to the Abbey's Cloister.<ref name=abbey>{{cite web|title=Henry and James Cornewall|url=https://www.westminster-abbey.org/abbey-commemorations/commemorations/henry-and-james-cornewall|website=Westminster Abbey|accessdate=24 June 2015}}</ref> An earlier attempt to move the monument to make room for one to Lord Salisbury was dropped after navy objections.<ref name=corn/>
A ship named {{HMS|Cornwall|1761|6}} in honour of the Captain was launched in 1761. Frederick Cornewall was its first commander.<ref name=gent>{{cite journal|title=Historical Chronicle|editor-link=Sylvanus Urban|editor1-last=Sylvanus|editor1-first=Urban|journal=Gentleman's Magazine|date=May 1761|volume=31|pages=235–236|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=SqA3AAAAYAAJ&pg=PA231|location=London}}</ref>
==References== {{reflist|30em}}
{{s-start}} {{s-par|gb}} {{succession box | title = Member of Parliament for Weobley | with = Uvedale Tomkins Price | years = 1732–1734 | before = John Birch | before2= Uvedale Tomkins Price | after = John Birch | after2 = Sir John Buckworth }} {{succession box | title = Member of Parliament for Weobley | with = Sir John Buckworth | years = 1737–1741 | before = John Birch | before2= Sir John Buckworth | after = Lieutenant-Colonel The Lord Carpenter | after2 = The Viscount Palmerston }} {{s-end}}
{{authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Cornewall, James}} Category:1690s births Category:1744 deaths Category:Royal Navy captains Category:Royal Navy personnel of the War of the Austrian Succession Category:British military personnel killed in the War of the Austrian Succession Category:British MPs 1727–1734 Category:British MPs 1734–1741 Category:Burials at sea Category:Members of the Parliament of Great Britain for English constituencies