CaptainSir Walter Stirling (18 May 1718 – 24 November 1786) was a captain in the Royal Navy.
Naval career
Born in 1718, Walter Stirling entered the Royal Navy. He was made "The Regulating Captain of the Impress at the Tower". On 30 October 1753 he married Dorothy Willing, the daughter of Charles Willing, a Philadelphia merchant. According to family stories, he persuaded the family of Horatio Nelson to let Horatio join the navy, and he lost the opportunity to be appointed Governor of Halifax as he was visiting his wife in Scotland when the offer came in. In 1780 he was captain of the Gibraltar, and was present when Admiral George Rodneycaptured the island of Sint Eustatius from the Dutch during the Fourth Anglo-Dutch War.[1] Selected to take home dispatches, he was knighted on arrival. In 1783 he appointed Commander-in-Chief, The Nore.[1] When King George III inspected Stirling's ships, he was so impressed that he offered to make Stirling a baronet. Stirling declined, but his eldest son, also named Walter, later claimed the title, becoming Sir Walter Stirling, 1st Baronet of Faskine. He died in London in November 1786. His second surviving son, Charles, became an admiral. A grandson by his daughter Anne was James Stirling, first Governor of Western Australia, and himself an admiral in later life.[2]
^"James Stirling". Dictionary of Australian Biography. Retrieved 2 January 2015.
Sources
Statham-Drew, Pamela (2003). James Stirling: Admiral and Founding Governor of Western Australia. Nedlands, Western Australia: University of Western Australia Press. ISBN0-85564-170-3.
Further reading
The following sources were not consulted in the writing of this article:
Stirling, T. W. (1933). The Stirlings of Cadder: An account of the Original Family of that Name and of The Family of the STIRLINGS OF DRUMPELLIER With which the Representation of the Ancient House of Cadder now lies. St Andrews University Press.
