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[Identification of item], Admiral Robert Barrie Papers, David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library
The Admiral Robert Barrie Papers were received by the David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library as a purchase between 1966 and 1970.
Processed by RBMBSL Staff
Encoded by Noah Huffman, November 2010
Accessions were merged into one collection, described in this finding aid.
Descriptive sources and standards used to create this inventory:
This finding aid is NCEAD compliant.
Admiral Sir Robert Barrie (circa 1774-1841) of the British navy participated in the Vancouver Expedition, 1791-1795, the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars, the War of 1812, and served as the naval commissioner in Canada, 1819-1834. Barrie was appointed lieutenant in 1795, commander in 1801, captain in 1802, commodore in 1827, and rear admiral in 1837. He was nominated a Companion of the Bath (1815), a Knight Commander of the Royal Hanoverian Guelphic Order (1834), and a Knight Commander (1840).
Admiral Barrie's father was Dr. Robert Barrie (d.1775) of Sanquhar, Scotland, who was appointed surgeon's mate to the 31st Regiment of Foot in 1765. During the early 1770s Dr. Barrie served with this regiment at Mobile, Pensacola, and St. Augustine, Florida. At St. Augustine in 1772 he married Dorothy Gardner, sister of Admiral Alan, First Baron Gardner. Dr. Barrie's death and the family's return to England occurred in 1775. Dorothy Barrie married secondly George Clayton of Lostock Hall, Lancashire
Young Robert Barrie attended schools at Neston and Dedham, England, during the 1780s and began his naval career at the end of the decade. He and Harry Humphrys (d.1799), a first cousin, were members of the Vancouver Expedition, 1791-1795, of which Admiral Gardner was a patron. Some of Humphry's drawings can be found in the journals of the voyage published in 1798, and his own diary is at the Public Record Office in London. Another member of the expedition was Thomas Pitt, Second Baron Camelford, who later became one of Barrie's closest friends. Camelford was the brother-in-law of William, Baron Grenville, with whom Barrie also became friends
The wars with France and the United States provided steady employment for the young officer. During 1796-1800 he was on board Admiral Gardner's flagship, the Royal Sovereign, and he, Humphrys and Gardner were witnesses to the naval mutiny at Portsmouth in 1797. During the next decade Barrie was an officer or commander of warships that fought the French in the North Atlantic, Mediterranean, and Caribbean. In 1810 he captured Lucien Bonaparte near Sardinia. During the War of 1812 he commanded the Dragon along the American coast where he participated in the blockade of Chesapeake Bay (1813-1814), the capture of Bangor and Hampden, Maine (1814), actions along the Rappahannock River, Virginia, including the battle at Fareham's Church (1814), and the battle at Point Petre, Georgia, with the capture of St. Marys (1815).
After the war ended, Captain Barrie returned to England where he married (1816) Julia Wharton Ingilby, a member of the Ingilby family of Ripley Castle. The couple traveled in Europe during 1817-1818. In 1819 Barrie became commissioner of the navy in Canada, an office he held until the naval establishment was broken up in 1834. The family then returned to England and resided at the estate of Swarthdale in Lancashire.
Captain Barrie unsuccessfully contested the seat for Preston in the House of Commons in 1826. Admiral Gardner was the M.P. for Plymouth, 1790-1796, and for Westminster, 1796-1806. Sir William Amcotts-Ingilby, Second Baronet, the brother of Lady Julia Barrie, was M.P. for East Retford, 1807-1812, and Lincolnshire, 1823-1834.
The collection consists primarily of family papers in which some naval correspondence is intermingled. The letters of Sir Robert and Lady Julia Barrie are numerous. There are letters by Admiral Gardner, Dorothy (Gardner) Clayton, and various naval officers and members of the family. There are groups of legal papers, biographical sketches, genealogy, financial accounts, and photographs.
Family relationships and associations are extensive and are represented by comment, legal documents, and genealogies. The families include: Clayton, Cornwall, Cracraft, Cririe, Dixon, Fothergill, Gardner, Humphrys, Ingilby, Lyon, Shuttleworth, and Uppleby. A small group of photographs includes Sir Robert Barrie, William Barrie, John and Olivia (Page) Fothergill, John and Kitty (Leadbetter) Uppleby, Leadbetter and Eliza (Barrie) Uppleby, Charles Clotworthy Wood, Swarthdale House, and others.
The papers were still owned by the family as late as the 1950s. On Feb. 28, 1951, Charles John Ormond Barrie wrote about them to James S. Matthews of the Vancouver City Archives. Ten years earlier (Aug. 19, 1941) he listed several series of letters, some of which are no longer in the collection--correspondence from Lord Aylmer, Sir George Cockburn, Sir John Franklin, and George Vancouver. The covers for a few of these letters remain in the collection. The covers for letters by Admiral Gardner and copies of letters by Barrie indicate other absent manuscripts. Some papers may have been destroyed during Barrie's lifetime.
These are searchable subject entries for this collection. Performing a search on these subjects in the Duke University Libraries online catalog will bring up other related research materials.
There is a collection of Barrie Papers at the Royal Military College, Kingston, Ontario, Canada.
The William L. Clements Library has Barrie Papers from the War of 1812. They include his letters from H.M.S. Dragon during 1813-1815 and letters from Admiral Cockburn mostly during the same period.
The University of British Columbia has letters of Georgiana Barrie (Sister Mary Gonzaga) from the Crimea.
Correspondence from the Napoleonic wars is at the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, England.
The diary (34 years) of Barrie's mother, Dorothy (Gardner) Clayton, is in the Lancashire Records Office.