Sir Charles Saxton, 1st Baronet
Sir Charles Saxton, 1st Baronet (1732–1808) was a British Royal Navy officer who fought in several major conflicts and later ran the navy’s main dockyard at Portsmouth.
Born in 1732, Saxton was the youngest son of Edward Saxton, a London merchant, and grew up at Circourt Manor in Berkshire. He joined the Navy in January 1745 as a captain’s servant aboard HMS Gloucester. Over the next years he served on several ships and saw service on the Guinea coast and in the East Indies during the Seven Years’ War. He was promoted to lieutenant in 1757 and to commander in 1760, and helped escort Duchess Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz to her marriage to George III. He became a post captain in 1762 and commanded HMS Magnanime, then later the 32-gun HMS Pearl during the Newfoundland station and reconnoitring the Gulf of St Lawrence.
In 1770 Saxton took command of HMS Phoenix during the Falklands Crisis, and in 1771 he married Mary Bush. When the American War of Independence began, he commanded the 74-gun HMS Invincible. He served with the Channel Fleet and then in the West Indies under Sir Samuel Hood. Saxton participated in several major actions, including the capture of Sint Eustatius in 1781 and the Battle of the Chesapeake later that year. He returned to the West Indies and fought at the Battle of Saint Kitts in January 1782, then helped refit Invincible in Jamaica and joined Admiral Hugh Pigot off the American coast. He was active off New York and in the blockade of Cape François, and in February 1783 Invincible helped retake HMS Argo. Saxton returned to England in mid-1783 and paid Invincible off.
After a period with no commands, Saxton was appointed in 1787 to a commission examining the impress system, with responsibility for London. In 1789 he became commissioner of the navy at Portsmouth, the navy’s main dockyard, a position he held through the French Revolutionary Wars and into the Napoleonic Wars. He was described as a capable, steady administrator who avoided radical changes. In 1794 he was created a baronet of Circourt.
Saxton retired from his Portsmouth post in 1806 with a pension and died in November 1808. He was succeeded in the baronetcy by his eldest son, Charles. He and Mary raised a large family; among their children, Philadelphia-Hannah married Captain Robert Dudley Oliver in 1805, and his elder brother Clement Saxton served as High Sheriff of Berkshire in 1777. There are some differing historical details in sources about the exact dates of Invincible’s command, but Saxton’s career as a ship captain and as an administrator in Portsmouth is well established.
This page was last edited on 2 February 2026, at 05:59 (CET).