sketcher and naval officer, entered the Royal Navy in June 1778 as Captain Charles Saxon’s servant on board the Winchelsea then escorting a convoy of ships to Jamaica. He subsequently saw active service in the Conquestador (1779-82), Thorn , Hermione , Champion and Triumph (1782-86) then Victory (1790), in British, French, American and West Indian waters. On 16 March 1791 he was commissioned lieutenant into HMS Gorgon commanded by Captain John Parker, which was taking the newly commissioned Lieutenant-Governor Philip Gidley King and a shipload of convicts to Norfolk Island via Sydney. After five weeks in Sydney, the Gorgon arrived at Norfolk Island in November 1791 then returned to England.
Rye was appointed to HMS Crescent on 22 January 1793 under Captain James Saumarez, again fighting against the French. He was wounded in the head on 20 October during the capture of the French frigate La R éunion . While he was at sea during this battle Mr H. Wood exhibited two drawings of Natives of Botany Bay (a man and a woman) at a meeting of the Society for Promoting Natural History Records in London which, according to the society’s minutes, were drawn by Captain Rye when he came to New South Wales as a lieutenant in 'one of the ships that carried out the convicts’. They are now held by the Linnaean Society, London.
Rye had a distinguished and extremely active naval career until 1837 then became an out-pensioner at Greenwich Hospital. Married and with a family, he was commissioned rear-admiral on 1 October 1846.
- Writers:
- Staff Writer
- Date written:
- 1992
- Last updated:
- 2011
