An oil painting 'Admiral Sir William Essington (1753-1816), KCB' by John James Halls.
Essington was promoted lieutenant on 28 February 1777. He was appointed commander on 30 March 1781, commanding the ‘Lisburn’ (14 guns) and the 8-gun bomb vessel ‘Vesuvius’. He was promoted captain on 18 January 1783 towards the end of the War of American Independence. Essington returned to active service in 1795, commanding the ‘Sceptre’ (64 guns) and then the 74-gun ‘Triumph’, seeing action at the Battle of Camperdown on 11 October 1797. Later, he commanded the ‘Goliath’ (74 guns) and the ‘Sans Pareil’ (80 guns). He was promoted Rear Admiral of the Blue on 23 April 1805 and of the White on 9 November 1805. Essington commanded the ‘Minotaur’ (74 guns) at the Second Battle of Copenhagen in 1807. He was made Rear Admiral of the Red on 28 April 1808, and then promoted in turn becoming Vice Admiral of the Blue (31 July 1810), of the White (1 August 1811) and of the Red (4 June 1814). He was made a Knight of the Bath on 2 January 1815. He died at his home in Nottingham Place, London, on 12 July 1816, aged 63.