Jonathan Birch (EIC captain)

Jonathan Birch (1771/2 – September 1848) was a British sea captain for the East India Company. He became a close friend of the actor William Charles Macready, whose diary is a major source for Birch's background and life.

Miniature portrait of Birch

Naval career

Birch was an East India Company ship captain, making a number of voyages; a report of 1837 gave his age as 65, the senior surviving captain.^[1] He captained the Britannia, lost off Brazil in 1805.^[2] He then captained its successor of the same name, Britannia.^[3]

Wrecks of the Britannia, and Admiral Gardner, East Indiamen, on the Goodwin Sands, 24 Jan 1809

Birch's second command Britannia ended in a wrecking on the Goodwin Sands off the South Foreland on 24 January 1809, in company with the Admiral Gardner and the brig Apollo.^[4][5] He then took the Cabalva on an 1813/4 voyage to Bombay and China.^[6]

On land

Birch in retirement from the sea resided in Gower Street, London, and at Pudlicote House, near Shorthampton in Oxfordshire, built in 1810, which he purchased in 1822.^[7][8][9]

Pudlicote House, 2009 photograph

Birch was on the committee of The Marine Society.^[10]

Relationship with Macready and family background

The Rev. Thomas Birch was rector of South Thoresby, which is not far to the west of Alford; he was a brother of the surgeon Charles Birch, maternal grandfather of William Charles Macready the actor.^[11] Jonathan Birch was his son.^[12] Birch was a therefore a relation of Macready on the latter's mother's side.^[13]

Macready while he was on tour in New York, and hearing of Jonathan Birch's death, called him "my dear friend and relative".^[14] His mother was Christina Ann Birch, granddaughter of the Rev. Jonathan Birch of Bakewell (1685–1735); his housemaster at Rugby School was a cousin (once removed) William Birch, son of the Rev. Thomas Birch of Alford, Lincolnshire, a son of Jonathan Birch of Bakewell.^{[15][16][17][18]}

Death

Jonathan Birch died in 1848, at age 76, at Alford.^[7]

Family

Birch, described as of St Pancras, London, married Mary Elizabeth Morrice (died 1822), daughter of William Morice.^[7][19] They had a son, William John Birch, known as a writer.^[20] A brother and two sisters of William John died young.^[21] The eldest daughter, Elizabeth Mary Morice Birch, died in 1831 at age 23.^[22]

After Birch's death, his brother George brought a case on the interpretation of his will of 1845 in the Prerogative Court of Canterbury.^[23]