Admiral Skeffington Lutwidge (1735-1814).

£19,750 · Offered by Maggs Bros Ltd

This fine portrait is one of three known miniatures of esteemed Royal Navy officer Admiral Charles Skeffington Lutwidge (1737-1814). Cumbrian born, Lutwidge saw active service during the American War of Independence, the French Revolutionary Wars and the Napoleonic Wars. However, he is mostly remembered for his association with a young Horatio Nelson. In 1773 during his third spell as First Lord of the Admiralty, John Montagu, the 4th Earl of Sandwich, after being petitioned by the Royal Society, proposed to King William IV a voyage with the stated aim of ascertaining the most northerly passable point. Overall command of the expedition was given to Constantine Phipps, who had previously accompanied prominent Royal Society member Sir Joseph Banks on a voyage to Newfoundland and Labrador. Phipps was to command the officer’s ship, HMS Racehorse , while Lutwidge was given command of HMS Carcass . The young and supremely eager Nelson had approached his uncle, Captain Maurice Suckling, with a view to building upon his voyage to the West Indies the previous year. Suckling was to be engaged on defensive duty in the North Sea, an occupation deemed too pedestrian for the keen young seaman and so Suckling turned to his friend Lutwidge who was able to appoint Nelson as Coxswain aboard HMS Carcass . That this should have been deemed a suitable voyage for a boy of fifteen is something of a mystery. It is well known that a particularly hardy and experienced crew had been sought for the phys

• Year: 1795

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