Edward St Loe

Notes on Officer

ST. LO, EDWARD (1682?–1729), rear-admiral, probably the son of Commissioner George St. Lo, was born about 1682, and entered the navy in March 1695 on board the Lichfield with Lord Archibald Hamilton. In 1702 he was a lieutenant of the Chichester, one of the fleet with Sir George Rooke [q. v.] off Cadiz and at Vigo. On 9 Sept. 1703 he was promoted to be captain of the Pendennis in the fleet under Vice-admiral John Graydon [q. v.] in the West Indies and at Placentia. In 1704 he was again in the West Indies in the Dolphin, which in 1705 was employed in convoy service in the North Sea. In 1706 he was in command of the Gosport of 32 guns, appointed to convoy a fleet of merchant ships to Jamaica. On 28 July they fell in with two French ships of war, one of which, the Jason of 54 guns, engaged and took the Gosport after an obstinate defence. On 19 Oct. following St. Lo was tried for the loss of the ship and fully acquitted. He was shortly after appointed to the Tartar, also of 32 guns, which, during the following summer cruised from the Channel, in the Soundings, and as far as Lisbon. In 1708–1709–10 he commanded the Salisbury prize in the North Sea, and in May 1710 was appointed to the Defiance, a 64-gun ship, employed in the West Indies in 1711–12. On Christmas day 1712, on her way home from Jamaica, she put into Kinsale in distress, being fifty men short of complement and having eighty sick. She did not reach the Downs till 26 March 1713. In 1720–1 he was captain of the Prince Frederick, flagship of Rear-admiral Francis Hosier [q. v.] in the Baltic, and continued in her till 1723. In 1726 he went out to the West Indies in the Superbe, one of the squadron with Hosier, and succeeded temporarily to the chief command on Hosier's death on 25 Aug. 1727. He continued the blockade of Porto Bello for some little time longer, till, having ascertained that all the Spanish ships were laid up, and, for want of stores, quite unable to be fitted for sea, he returned to Jamaica. There he was superseded by Vice-admiral Edward Hopsonn on 29 Jan. 1727–8. The squadron returned to the Spanish coast in February, and on 8 May Hopsonn died, leaving the command again to St. Lo, who held it for eleven months, when he too died on 22 April 1729. He had been promoted on 4 March to the rank of rear-admiral, but had not received the news. He was unmarried, but by his will provided for a natural son, an infant.