John_Marshall_(British_captain)

John Marshall (Royal Navy officer, born 1748)

John Marshall (Royal Navy officer, born 1748)

British explorer

Captain John Marshall (Marshallese: Jo̧o̧n M̧ajeļ) (26 February 1748 NS (15 February 1747 OS) – 1819) was a British Royal Navy officer and explorer of the Pacific. The Marshall Islands are named after him.

Quick Facts Born, Died ...

Biography

Marshall was born in Ramsgate, Kent, England, and became an apprentice sailor at the age of ten. He saw action during the American Revolutionary War of 1778 to 1783.

In 1788 he captained Scarborough, a ship of the First Fleet taking convicts from England to Botany Bay[1] in New South Wales. He then sailed from Australia to China, charting previously unknown islands (mainly some of Gilbert Islands and Marshall Islands), as well as a new trade route to Canton (present-day Guangzhou).[2] The islands which he had originally called "Lord Mulgrove's range" were later[when?] named the "Marshall Islands" by Thomas Gilbert.[3]

Marshall also captained Scarborough on her second voyage transporting convicts to Australia in 1790. The convicts coming aboard were in poor health and many did not survive the voyage; this, combined with an attempted seizure of the ship by the convicts, deterred him from any further voyages of transportation.

During the Napoleonic Wars of 1803 to 1815, as captain of the ship Diana, he was severely wounded while repelling an attack by a French privateer. He died in 1819 at the age of 71.

References

  1. [1]
    Samuel Eliot Morison (22 May 1944). "The Gilberts & Marshalls: A distinguished historian recalls the past of two recently captured pacific groups". Life. Retrieved 14 October 2009.
  2. [2]
    Barrie Macdonald (1982). Cinderellas of the Empire: towards a history of Kiribati and Tuvalu. Australian National University Press. ISBN 982-02-0335-X. Retrieved 14 October 2009.
  3. [3]
    The Gilberts and Marshalls by Samuel Eliot Morison in Life 22 May 1944
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