Sir William Hoste, 1st Baronet

Wikipedia Biographical Summary

Captain Sir William Hoste, 1st Baronet KCB RN (26 August 1780 – 6 December 1828), Royal Navy captain, was the son of Dixon Hoste, rector of Godwick and Tittleshall in Norfolk. He was born at Ingoldisthorpe, and the family later moved to Godwick Hall, east of Tittleshall, which was leased from Thomas Coke, who later became the 1st Earl of Leicester, of Holkham Hall.

Although, perhaps best known as one of Lord Nelson's protégés, Hoste was one of the great frigate captains of the Napoleonic wars, taking part in six major actions including the capture of a heavily fortified port. He was however absent from Trafalgar having been sent with gifts to the Dey of Algiers.

Childhood and education

Hoste was educated for a time at King's Lynn and later at the Paston School in North Walsham, where Horatio Nelson himself had been to school some years previously. Dixon Hoste had arranged for Hoste's name to be entered in the books of HMS Europa as a Captain's servant when he was just 5 years old, although he would not actually go to sea until he reached the age of 12 or 13.

That time coincided with the outbreak of war with France in February 1793. Lacking any influence or naval contacts himself, Dixon Hoste asked his landlord, Thomas Coke, for assistance and was introduced to Nelson, then living nearby in Burnham Thorpe and who had recently been appointed as Captain of HMS Agamemnon a 64-gun third-rate, which was being fitted out at Chatham Dockyard.

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Later life

Hoste's health, compromised by his malaria and earlier lung infection, worsened and he was forced to return to England. In 1814, he was made a baronet, and in 1815 he was knighted KCB. In 1817, he married Lady Harriet Walpole, with whom he had three sons and three daughters. In 1825, he was appointed to the royal yacht Royal Sovereign.

In January 1828, he developed a cold which affected his already weakened lungs, and he died of tuberculosis in London on 6 December 1828. He was buried in St John's Chapel, London.

Legacy

Hoste's actions at Cattaro and Ragusa were later immortalised in fiction, where they are attributed to Captain Jack Aubrey, the principal character in Patrick O'Brian's 20 novels of the Aubrey–Maturin series. A small island in the entrance to the bay of Vis town is named Hoste Island after him, while the Sir William Hoste Cricket Club in Vis was founded by the Croatian islanders after learning that he had organised the game there during the British occupation of the island. A noted pub and restaurant in Burnham Market is called the Hoste Arms, either in honour of him, or of his family, who were significant landholders in the area.

Once, while in conversation with Hoste's father, Nelson remarked:

His worth as a man and an officer exceeds all which the most sincere friend can say of him. I pray God to bless my dear William.

Lord Radstock once wrote:

I look at you (Hoste) as the truly worthy eleve of my incomparable and ever to be lamented friend the late Lord Nelson.
SOURCE: Wikipedia contributors, 'William Hoste', Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 16 November 2013, 19:01 UTC, <http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=William_Hoste&oldid=58194...> [accessed 12 January 2014]