Henry Hart (Royal Navy officer)

Rear-Admiral Sir Henry Hart KCH (1 May 1781 – 22 December 1856) was a British naval officer and diplomat of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. After a brief stint in the East India Company he joined the Royal Navy in 1796 on Sir Edward Pellew's frigate HMS Indefatigable, participating in the action of 13 January 1797 before following Pellew to the ship of the line HMS Impetueux where he experienced a mutiny before taking part in a number of cutting out expeditions and the Ferrol Expedition. At the Peace of Amiens Hart transferred to the ship of the line HMS Foudroyant in the Mediterranean Sea where he was promoted to lieutenant and joined Sir John Gore's frigate HMS Medusa, in which he participated in the action of 5 October 1804 before sailing to India in 1805. There he was reunited with Pellew who made him his flag lieutenant and appointed him to a succession of acting commands, including to that of the frigate HMS Caroline in which he played an important role in the Raid on Griessie in 1807.

In 1811 health issues forced Hart to return to England where he served in the English Channel before being promoted to post-captain later in the year. In 1814 he became the flag captain of Gore's flagship HMS Revenge in which he helped oversee France's surrender of Corfu. Hart's next command was the frigate HMS Sapphire which he sailed to the Leeward Islands to protect British interests in the warfare resulting from the Spanish American wars of independence. In 1820 he was again forced to relinquish his command due to ill health and he would not gain his next command for ten years until Gore again requested for him to become his flag captain on the East Indies and China Station. There he was given temporary command of the frigate HMS Imogene to go on a diplomatic mission to Zanzibar where he secured the loyalty of the imaum and received a ship of the line as a gift for William IV. In 1835 he returned to England and was knighted for his diplomatic and military services. He became a commissioner of Greenwich Hospital, London before being promoted as a retired rear-admiral in 1846. He died at Queen's House, Greenwich, on 22 December 1856 at the age of seventy-six.