Edgell, Harry Edmund, Vice-Admiral, 1809-1876.

The papers consist of official letterbooks, 1855 to 1860, and two folders of official letters, 1857 to 1858, relating to Edgell's commands in China and the East Indies.

Administrative / biographical background
Edgell was born in 1809, the only son of Rear-Admiral Henry Folkes Edgell and Mary Edgell née O’Keefe, of Standerwick Court, near Beckington in Somerset. He entered the Royal Naval College in 1821, was promoted to the rank of lieutenant in 1828, to commander in 1837 and to captain in 1846. He was appointed to the screw frigate HMS TRIBUNE (1853) in 1855, when she was in the Black Sea fleet. Under his command, she later went to the Pacific and finally to China. In 1857 Edgell was the senior naval officer at Hong Kong and he transferred into the brig HMS BITTERN (1840), commanding the gunboats on the Canton River during the hostilities of the Second China War. In 1858 he was given command of the squadron in Indian waters, during which time he commanded the screw frigate HMS CHESAPEAKE (1855) and later the paddle frigate HMS RETRIBUTION. The latter vessel returned to England and was paid off in 1860. Edgell had no further active employment and was promoted on the retired list, reaching the rank of vice-admiral in 1871. He was made a Companion of the Order of the Bath in 1859. He died at Chichester and was buried at Beckington in 1876.