Edmund Gidley, privateer

 I recently read an article in Who Do You Think You Are magazine about privateers, and remembered we have our own Gidley privateer, Edmund Gidley, who commanded a privateer, the Hornet, for a brief period.

A Royal Navy Sloop of War, similar to the Hornet

Privateers were a sort of legalised pirate or a privatised navy. They operated within the law, only against a country Britain was at war with, and had to jump through several legal and financial hoops before they were given a licence to operate. After that, all the spoils of captured ships belonged to the ship's owners, so it was profitable, but very dangerous. The owners would take about half of the profits, and the crew would share the remainder, with the captain taking about 12 shares. and able seamen 1 share. Those who operated outside the law were treated severely and indeed in November 1759 the Commander of the Pluto Privateer and four volunteers were tried for "piratically and feloniously" robbing the Master of a Dutch vessel and sentenced to death.

Edmund Gidley was from a well-off family which had connections with the Royal Navy. He was christened in Crediton in May 1734, the next to last son of John Gidley and Margaret Ellicombe of the Winkleigh branch of Gidleys. One of Edmund's sisters became the mother of Philip Gidley King, who took a more traditional route of remaining in the Royal Navy before becoming the second Governor of New South Wales. Edmund's younger brother Gustavus was the keen follower of John Wesley, and founded Gidley's chapel in Exeter (see blog post 3 Oct 2020). Their father John Gidley had been apprenticed to the Town Clerk of Exeter in 1711. He died in 1761 and was buried in Spreyton.

Presumably Edmund joined the Navy, then moved to Bristol, where he married Catherine Nicholas in 1758. That same year there is a record of his being the Commander (Captain) of the ship Hornet which had a crew of 35, 8 carriage and 6 swivel guns. It was owned by the Company of Bristol Merchants. 

Ships are much easier to trace than people in newspapers of the 18th century and it was relatively easy to trace the history of the Hornet in its progress from a Royal Navy Sloop of War to a French privateer back to Navy service and finally as a British privateer. In September 1756 it had been retaken by the Deal Castle Man of War and described as a large privateer, "taken from us in the last war". It returned to Navy service and its Captain, Captain Salt, was tried by court-martial in February 1758 for an unspecified breach of duty. 

In April 1758 it was still in Navy service and brought in a small French privateer, taken on the north side of Hispaniola, but by 5 Oct 1758 the National Archives record HCA 26/10/80 gives Edmund Gidley as the commander of the Hornet Privateer. However, he did not remain long as Commander of the Hornet. The peak of his achievement must have been in November 1858 when the Hornet Privateer brought into Bristol a Dutch ship from the West Indies, having 800 hogheads of sugar aboard. In December 1758 Lloyd's List reported that it had returned to Bristol from "Cruize" (in the West Indies?). By August 1759 ownership of "one of the fastest sailing privateers" had apparently been transferred to London and its Commander was Captain Harden.

There is no trace so far of a death or burial for Edmund Gidley, but his widow Catherine remarried in 1773 to James Davis. I have found no record of any children for Edmund and Catherine.