- Daniel Oliver Guion
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Captain Daniel Oliver Guion
Daniel Oliver Guion (London, 20 April 1776 - Ringkjøbing, 24 December 1811) was an officer of the Royal Navy. He was the son of Daniel Guion and Ann (Harwood) and the brother of Captain Gardiner Henry Guion. The Guion family were Huguenots and probably related to the family de Guyon de Geis from France. Another Huguenot branch of this family is still living in England and a famous member of this family is Richard Debaufre Guyon, general in Hungarian and Turkish service.
Contents
Appointments
Guion was appointed lieutenant on 18 April 1794, to commander on 22 May 1796 and to captain on 21 May 1802.[1]
Biographical notes
In 1801 Commander Guion was captain of Eurus, a 32-gun frigate, armed "en flute", with most of her guns removed, one of the 28 troop ships in Admiral Lord Keith`s fleet which carried 16,500 soldiers to Aboukir Bay on 2 March 1801. They began disembarking on the 8th. Daniel Guion was one of the five commanders put on shore under Sir Sidney Smith in charge of a battalion of 1000 seamen to co-operate with the army. Along with the other captains who had served in Egypt he was awarded a Turkish gold medal by the Grand Signior. In 1802 he was promoted to post-captain and appointed to the 50-gun troopship.
In February 1811 he was appointed to the St George as flag-captain to Vice-Admiral Robert Carthew Reynolds, commanding a detachment of the Baltic fleet at Hanö where merchantmen from Swedish, Finnish, Russian and Prussian ports with cargoes for England assembled to join their convoy. The last convoy of the year, 129 merchantmen, left on 1 November, but were forced back and finally left on the 9th. The convoy was dispersed by a gale on the 15th. St George narrowly escaped being wrecked on a shoal off Zealand but lost her masts and rudder. She was floated again on the 17th and Admiral Saumarez wanted the ship to winter in Sweden but both Reynolds, and Guion said she was as fit to make the passage as any in the fleet. On Tuesday 17 December the whole fleet sailed from Vingå with the St George initially in tow of the Cressy.
With jury masts and a temporary rudder she was making fair progress when the wind backed and made the coast of Jutland a lee shore. She was unable to work off and was wrecked at Nazen on the 24th with the loss of all but seven of the 738 on board[2] [3] that was wrecked 24 dec 1811 before the coast of Ringkjøbing, Danmark[4].
Family[5]
Daniel married 1809 Sara Ponsonby (1792-1873). She is a daugter of William Carrique Ponsonby (d. Bef 1837) and Elizabeth Gun (d. 09 Jun 1812), Cork[6] who loved in Crotto or Crotta House not far from Tralee. A famous namesake is Sarah Ponsonby, one of the ladies of Llangollen. They were married in her father's library "against her parent's desire who nevertheless consented". As a consequence she was disowned by her father. In the family she was known as "the beautiful fiend"[7] In the last will of Sara Ponsonby she mentions the widow of General Richard Guyon.
References
- ^ Archive of the Royal Navy
- ^ Royal Naval Biography; or Memoirs of the services of all flag-Officers, superannuated rear-Admirals, retired Captains, post.captains and Commanders, whose Names appeared on the Admiralty List of Sea-Officers at the commencement of the year 1823
- ^ Ships of the old Navy
- ^ Strandingsmuseum St. George
- ^ Genealogy of the Guion Family
- ^ Genealogy of the Ponsonby Family
- ^ Archive of the Albers/Lips family in the Netherlands
Categories:- 1776 births
- 1811 deaths
- Royal Navy officers
- Deaths due to shipwreck
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