Captain the Honourable Joseph Denman
(1810-1874)

Volume 1, page 148, sitting number 797.

[Identified as 'Captain Denman' in the Silvy daybooks, the sitter is identified as 'Captain the Honourable Joseph Denman' on the reverse of the mount.]

He appears on the 1871 census, living at 'The Firs,' Hampstead Heath [London], aged 60, with his wife, Grace, aged 47, and a 22-year-old niece, Miss Mary W. Russell. He gave his place of birth as London, Middlesex, and described himself as 'Vice Admiral R. N. / Greenwich Pensioner.' Among the five servants also present on the night of the census was one, Eliza Cooper, descibed as an 'Invalid nurse,' so presumably Vice-Admiral Denman was in poor health by this date.

The Honourable Joseph Denman was at one time Commander-in-Chief at the Pacific station; Denman Island, S.E. of Comox, was named after him. He was also, at another time in his career, Captain of the Victoria and Albert, the royal paddle steamer.

He died on 26 November 1874 at 17 Eaton Terrace, Pimlico. He left an estate valued at £12,000. 

According to his obituary in the Morning Post (30 November 1874): 'The late admiral, who was born in 1810, married, 12th February, 1841, Grace Jane, youngest daughter of Mr James Watts Russell, of Ham Hall, Staffordshire. In 1859 he was a candidate to represent Manchester, in the Liberal interest, in conjunction with Mr Heywood, but both were defeated by a considerable majority.'