Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 25.djvu/130

Rh Anne, daughter of Henry Stafford, second duke of Buckingham, widow of Sir Walter Herbert, knight, and by her had five sons; the eldest son, Francis, second earl, and the third son, Edward (d. 1573), are separately noticed. A daughter, Dorothy, married in 1536 Richard Devereux, son of Lord Ferrers.

[Letters and Papers of Hen. VIII, ed. Brewer and Gairdner, passim; Bell's Huntingdon Peerage Case, p. 39; Froude's Hist. ii. 555; Doyle's Official Baronage, ii. 223; Burke's Peerage, p. 742.]  HASTINGS, GEORGE FOWLER (1814–1876), vice-admiral, second son of Hans Francis, eleventh Earl of Huntingdon [q. v.], by his first wife, was born on 28 Nov. 1814. He entered the navy in September 1824, and on 7 Jan. 1833 was promoted to be lieutenant. He was then appointed to the Excellent gunnery-ship at Portsmouth; in May 1834 to the Revenge in the Mediterranean; and in September 1837 to the Rhadamanthus steamer, also in the Mediterranean. On 30 June 1838 he was made commander; in the following January was appointed to the coastguard; and in August 1841 to the Harlequin, in which he went out to China, arriving in time to take part in the closing operations of the war, after which he was employed in the suppression of piracy on the coast of Sumatra. On paying off the Harlequin he was advanced to post rank, 31 Jan. 1845. From September 1848 to February 1851 he commanded the Cyclops steam frigate on the west coast of Africa; and from August 1852 to May 1857 the Curaçoa in the Mediterranean and Black Sea during the operations of the war with Russia, his services in which were acknowledged by a C.B., conferred 2 Jan. 1857, and the third class of the Medjidie. In January 1858 he was appointed superintendent of Haslar Hospital and the Royal Clarence victualling yard, in which post he continued till he attained his flag on 27 April 1863. From November 1866 to November 1869 he was commander-in-chief in the Pacific, with his flag in the Zealous, one of the earlier wooden-built ironclads. He became vice-admiral on 10 Sept. 1869. In February 1873 he was appointed commander-in-chief at the Nore, which office he held for the usual term of three years, ending 14 Feb. 1876. He died suddenly a few weeks afterwards, on 31 March 1876.

[O'Byrne's Nav. Biog. Dict.; Annual Register, 1876, cxviii. 137; Navy Lists.]  HASTINGS, HANS FRANCIS, eleventh (1779–1828), fourth and only surviving son of George Hastings, lieutenant-colonel in the 3rd regiment of foot-guards, by his wife Sarah, daughter of Colonel Thomas Hodges, was born in London on 14 Aug. 1779. He was educated at Repton School (1787–90), and afterwards at John Bettesworth's academy at Chelsea. Early in 1793 he commenced his naval career under Sir John Borlase Warren, then captain of the Flora. He took part in the action off Cancale Bay in April 1794, and in the following year was wounded in the Quiberon expedition. After serving six years with Warren, he was appointed acting lieutenant in the Sylph brig, and subsequently received his commission as second lieutenant of the Racoon. Early in 1800 he was appointed first lieutenant of the Thisbe, in which ship he accompanied the expedition to Egypt. He was afterwards appointed second lieutenant of l'Aigle, and on the breaking out of the war in 1803 was sent to Weymouth Roads to impress seamen for the navy. While engaged on this duty the party under his command was attacked by a mob, and in the conflict which ensued seventeen of his men were wounded, and three of their assailants were killed. Upon landing at Weymouth he was seized, and committed by the mayor, on the charge of murder, to Dorchester gaol. After a confinement of six weeks, he was removed by habeas corpus to Westminster, when he was bailed out by his relative, Lord Moira [see ], and was subsequently acquitted at the Dorchester summer assizes. From l'Aigle Hastings was removed to the Diamond, and he afterwards served as second lieutenant on the Audacious, and as flag-lieutenant on the Hibernia. On his refusal to go out to the West Indies, where two of his brothers had died, he was appointed acting ordnance barrackmaster in the Isle of Wight, and in 1808 was promoted to the post of ordnance storekeeper in Enniskillen, where he lived for more than nine years.

When Francis, tenth earl of Huntingdon, died in October 1789, the earldom of Huntingdon became dormant, while the ancient baronies of Hastings, &c., devolved upon his elder sister, Lady Elizabeth Hastings, the third wife of John Rawdon, first earl of Moira. Though Theophilus Henry Hastings, the eccentric rector of East and West Leake, Nottinghamshire, the uncle of Hans Francis Hastings, assumed the title of Earl of Huntingdon, to which he was entitled by his descent from Francis, the second earl [q.v.], he never took any steps to prove his right. Upon the death of his uncle in April 1804, Hastings made some attempt to investigate his claim to the earldom, but was soon compelled to abandon it for want of money. In July 1817 his friend