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Admiral David
Robertson-Macdonald, 11th of Kinlochmoidart
Biographical Summary
"XI. David Robertson-Macdonald, born August 6, 1817, a retired Admiral
in His Majesty's Fleet. He joined the Royal Navy as a volunteer of the
1st class, and was subsequently employed on the coast of Portugal and
the north coast of Spain during the civil wars in those countries, and
afterwards in the West Indies and Mediterranean. He was promoted to the
rank of Lieutenant in August, 1841, and in that rank served in H.M.S.
Hazard during the operations up the River Yang-tse-Kiang in the Chinese
War of 1842. He was then sent to the station which included New Zealand
and the Islands in the South Pacific.
While in New Zealand, in March, 1845, a serious rising of the natives
took place, and he, being in acting command consequent on the death of
Commander Charles Bell, in August, 1844, was sent by the Governor,
Captain Fitzroy, R.N., to protect the inhabitants of Korararika, in the
Bay of Islands. Having landed, on March 11, 1845, with a party of seamen
and marines, he was severely wounded while resisting the attack of an
overwhelming body of well-armed natives. For his services on this
occasion he was promoted Commander, and a sword, with an address, was
presented to him by the inhabitants of Auckland and Korararika, and
similar addresses were presented to him, his officers, and men from the
inhabitants of Wellington, Port Nicholson, and Nelson.
In the House of Commons, the Prime Minister, Sir Robert Peel, on July
23, 1845, thus alluded to his services: — "There is another individual
who has been alluded to, and to whom I wish to do justice: I mean that
gallant officer, Mr Robertson, to whom the gallant Commodore (Sir
Charles Napier) has referred. The scene on which that gallant officer
performed his services is a very distant one, and the services
themselves may not have cast around them that eminence and distinction
which sometimes attend services not more important; but I think it is
for the public interest that we should show in the House of Commons that
the distance of the scene and the comparative unimportance of the
conflict do not make us oblivious of rare merit. Sir, I must say that
his conduct stands forward in honourable contrast with the conduct of
others concerned on that occasion, and I rejoice to find a British
officer not thinking whether his ship was to be surprised by a parcel of
savages, but, leaving that ship, and setting on shore that gallant
example which so many officers of the Navy have before set, and rallying
round him till he was wounded the flagging spirits of the civilians. And
here I wish to make it known to the House of Commons that that conduct
shall not pass unrewarded. In justice to him, and as an encouragement to
others, that conduct shall receive its reward by the earliest
opportunity being taken to give him that promotion to which he is so
eminently entitled."
In 1849 he was appointed to the command of H.M.S. Cygnet, on the West
Coast of Africa, and for a year he was actively engaged in putting down
the slave trade.
In 1851 he was appointed Inspecting Commander in H.M. Coast Guard, and
served in that capacity till he was promoted to the rank of Captain in
1858. From 1862 to 1879 he was an Assistant Inspector of Lifeboats to
the Royal National Lifeboat Institution. For his services in saving life
he was awarded the silver medal of that institution in 1870. He also
holds the China and New Zealand medals. |
