Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 20.djvu/399

Gambier  [Besides authorities quoted in the text the biography of Gam in Theophilus Jones's Hist. of Breconshire, i. 160-1, ii. 156-69, with pedigrees, the pedigrees in Lewys Dwnn's Heraldic Visitation of Wales (Welsh MSS. Society); Gwaith Lewis Glyn Cothi; Sir Harris Nicolas's Battle of Agincourt; Tyler's Hist. of Henry V.]

 GAMBIER, EDWARD JOHN (1794–1879), chief justice of Madras, third son of Samuel Gambier, first commissioner of the navy (1752–1813), by Jane, youngest daughter of Daniel Mathew of Felix Hall, Essex, and nephew of Admiral James, baron Gambier [q. v.], was born in 1794 and entered at Eton in 1808. He afterwards proceeded to Trinity College, Cambridge, where he took his bachelor's degree in 1817. He was ninth senior optime, and junior chancellor's medallist; he proceeded M.A. in 1820, and became a fellow of his college. He was called to the bar at Lincoln's Inn 7 Feb. 1822, and acted as one of the municipal corporation commissioners in 1833. The recordership of Prince of Wales Island was conferred on him in 1834, and he was knighted by William IV at St. James's Palace on 6 Aug. in that year. He was removed to Madras 28 Nov. 1836 as a puisne judge of the supreme court, and raised to the chief justiceship there 11 March 1842, being sworn in on 22 May. The duties of this high post he discharged with ability and efficiency until his retirement in 1849, when he received from the Hindu community of Madras a testimonial consisting of a silver centre-piece weighing 550 ounces, and Lady Gambier was at the same time presented with a handsome tripod centrepiece by the European ladies of Madras (Illustrated London News, 1 Feb. 1851, p. 77, with views of the testimonials). ‘A Treatise on Parochial Settlement,’ which he published in 1828, went to a second edition under the editorship of J. Greenwood in 1835. He died at 22 Hyde Park Gate, Kensington, London, 31 May 1879, in his eighty-sixth year. He married in 1828 Emilia Ora, daughter of C. Morgell, M.P.; she died on 25 Feb. 1877.

[Times, 4 June 1879, p. 11; Law Times, 7 June 1879, p. 105.]  GAMBIER, JAMES (1723–1789), vice-admiral, was the grandson of a Norman Huguenot who left France on the revocation of the edict of Nantes, brother of John Gambier, lieutenant-governor of the Bahamas, and uncle of James, lord Gambier [q. v.] He was made a lieutenant by Admiral Mathews in the Mediterranean in 1743, and, after serving in the Buckingham and Marlborough, was in April 1746 promoted to the command of the Speedwell sloop, employed in the North Sea. In December 1747 he was posted to the Flamborough, and after commanding many different ships was in February 1758 appointed to the Burford, in which he assisted at the reduction of Louisbourg, and in the following year at the capture of Guadeloupe and the unsuccessful attack on Martinique, coming home in time to take part in the battle of Quiberon Bay. While at Halifax in 1758, acting under orders from Boscawen, he destroyed a number of pestilent liquor sheds, and pressed the sutlers—a piece of good service which afterwards caused him much annoyance, some of the sutlers prosecuting him at common law, against which he was still, two years later, claiming the protection of the admiralty. After the battle of Quiberon Bay, the Burford continued attached to the grand fleet till the peace. From 1766 to 1770 he commanded the Yarmouth guardship at Chatham, and from 1770 to 1773 was commander-in-chief on the North American station, with his broad pennant in the Salisbury. In July 1773 he was appointed comptroller of victualling, but was almost immediately afterwards advanced to be resident commissioner of the navy at Portsmouth, a post which he held till his promotion to be rear-admiral on 23 Jan. 1778. He was then sent out to New York as second in command under Lord Howe, and was left for short intervals as commander-in-chief, first, on Howe's departure from the station, and, secondly, on Byron's leaving for the West Indies. On 26 Sept. 1780 he was advanced to the rank of vice-admiral, and in 1783-4 was commanderin-chief at Jamaica, with his flag on board the Europa. His failing health compelled his early return to England, and he died at Bath on 8 Jan. 1789. He was twice married, and left issue by his first wife.

[Charnock's Biog. Nav. vi. 42; Gent. Mag. lix. pt. i. 182; Official Correspondence in the Public Record Office.]  GAMBIER, JAMES, (1756–1833), admiral of the fleet, son of John Gambier, lieutenant-governor of the Bahamas, and nephew of Vice-admiral James Gambier (1723-1789) [q. v.], was born at New Providence on 13 Oct. 1756, and at the age of eleven was entered on the books of the Yarmouth, guard-ship at Chatham, then commanded by his uncle. He was made lieutenant on 12 Feb. 1777, while serving on the North American station, and a year afterwards was promoted to the command of the Thunder bomb, which a few months later was picked up by the French fleet under D'Estaing. Gambier was