Vice-Admiral Salmon Morrice (1672-1740/41)

Vice-Admiral Salmon Morrice's monument in St Mary's Church, Betteshanger is a bust on a black sarcophagus, silhouetted against a big grey obelisk and flanked by trophies. Below is a relief of a first or second rate warship in full sail, with a relief panel depicting navigational instruments on each side.1 The inscription on the sarcophagus states:

'NEAR to this Place is Interr'd SALMON MORRICE Esq VICE ADMIRAL of His
MAJESTY'S WHITE SQUADRON, who Dyed the 25th March 1740. Aged 68 Years. Also
his Beloved wife, ELIZABETH, Daughter of WILLIAM WRIGHT Esqr, late
One of the COMMISSIONERS of His MAJESTY'S NAVY, she Dyed
the 22d of September, 1733 Aged 48 YEARS'.

The monument is by Peter Scheemakers (1691-1781), a sculptor of  Antwerp, who eventually settled in London. His most successful work was the statue of Shakespeare in Westminster Abbey (1740) which was paid for by public subscription. Rupert Gunnis2 list no fewer than 69 monuments (excluding statues and busts). Other monuments in Kent by Scheemakers  are:

He continued working in England until 1771, when he finally went to settle in Antwerp, where he died ten years later.

Naval Career of Vice-Admiral Salmon Morrice

The biographical material for Salmon Morrice is fragmented but this is what I have learnt so far:

He was second son of Captain William Morrice and Jane Salmon of Betteshanger, who started the Kent branch of the Morrice family.

In 1692 he served as a second lieutenant aboard the 60-gun HMS York commanded by James Killegrew. He appears to have been given his first commission the in October 1692 but there is no mention of him until May 1697 when he is 'appointed captain of a small frigate, called the Royal Transport, or as we are rather inclined to believe, the Royal Escape, a small vessel still kept in the navy to commemorate the preservation of king Charles II'.3

In 1700 he was Captain of HMS Newport, stationed off New York. On 28th October the Governor of New York, Richard Coote, Earl of Bellamont4 writes a letter to Captain Salmon Morrice, requesting his assistance:

Whereas the souldiers in his Mats pay belonging to this garison have fallen into mutiny upon pretence of the want of full English pay and are got together under their Arms and have us'd several menaces to attempting the lives of my selfe, the Lieut Governor and the rest of their Commissioned officers. The King's service requiring that the s'd Mutineers be immediately repell'd and suppress'd and the peace and security of this Town and Province. I do therefore in his Mats name order and appoint you forthwith to bring his Magts ship under your command as near to the place where the s'd Mutineers are got together as you can with safety, and upon making a waft with the fflagg from off the Bastion in the Fort you are to fire your great guns and small arms upon the s'd Mutineers for which this shall be your sufficient warrant.

Given under my hand and seal at arms Forth William, the 28th October, 1700, and in the 12th year of His Magts Reign.


To Capt. Salmon Morrice
Commander of his Matts
Ship Newport

He later commanded the 50-gun Advice5 which was built in 1650 and rebuilt in 1698 at Woolwich. In June 1704 he captured a small French warship of 18-guns which was taken into the service as the HMS Advice Prize.

He was then principally stationed in the Mediterranean. In 1712 serving in the Lisbon squadron under Vice-Admiral Baker who appointed him commodore of a small force stationed off the Streight's mouth.

In April 1723 he was appointed to command the Sandwich, a second rate 96-gun ship. It was equipped for an expedition but the scheme was later abandoned.

In 1726 he was captain of the Nassau, a 70-gun ship sent with the fleet under Sir Charles Wager, to the Baltic. He was appointed to command the third division of the fleet under the rank of commodore.

Vice Admiral Salmon Morrice made demonstration in the Baltic in order to persuade the Empress of Russia from attacking Sweden. The demonstration of the British ships made such an impression that, although final notice had been sent by Russia, the Russians laid up their fleet.6

He was appointed Rear-Admiral of the Red in January 1727. Vice-Admiral of the Blue in 1728; and Vice-Admiral of the White Squadron in 1732, although he retired in 1733 on a pension of £450 per annum.

Salmon Morrice purchased the estate of Betteshanger in 1712. According to Bradshaw's Directory of 1847, Edward Grotius Boys, by his will, gave the manor of Great Betteshanger to his kinsman the Rev. Thomas Brett, the parish rector, and he sold it to Salmon Morrice, a captain in the Royal Navy.

Also see:Morrice Family (1670-1915)

Note:
[1] - Newman, John, A., 1987, The Buildings of England: North East and East Kent.
[2] - Gunnis, Rupert, 1951, Dictionary of British Sculptors 1661-1851.
[3] - John Charnock (1795) Biographia Navalis Vol III, London 169-171.
[4] - The Earl of Bellamont was appointed governor of the New England colonies in 1695, and assumed his duties in April 1697. Somewhat confusingly he signed himself Bellomont. It was Bellamont who in April 1700 sent Kidd and other pirates to London for trial.
[5] - On 27th June 1711 HMS Advice, under the command of Captain Kenneth, Lord Duffus, was attacked by eight privateers, captured and taken to Dunkirk.
[6] - Morice, William Charles, 1923, A Collection of Morice and Morrice Biographies with genealogical trees, 56.