Commander Hector Loring: A Fareham Officer from Burma to Acre

Commander Hector Loring was born in Fareham in August 1808 into a naval family. His father, Captain John Loring RN, had commanded HMS Bellerophon and died at Fareham only a few months after Hector was born. Hector’s elder brother also entered the Navy, but died of yellow fever while still a young officer. Naval service was therefore deeply woven into the family’s life.

Hector entered the Royal Navy in August 1821, aged thirteen. Before long he was sailing to the East Indies aboard HMS Liffey. During the First Anglo-Burmese War he witnessed the capture of Rangoon and took part as a midshipman in repeated boat operations on the Irrawaddy River.

His career then carried him across much of the British naval world. He served at Portsmouth, returned to the East Indies, and by the early 1830s was working as an acting lieutenant aboard several ships. In 1832 he also helped survey the harbour of Trincomalee in Ceylon, now Sri Lanka. A chart produced from the survey by Lieutenants James Cannon and Hector Loring survives in the collection of Royal Museums Greenwich.

He was formally promoted lieutenant in 1835 and later served in North America and the West Indies.

One of the most dramatic episodes of his career came in 1840, while serving aboard the 84-gun HMS Thunderer. Britain had intervened in a conflict in the eastern Mediterranean, and Loring took part in operations along the coast of what is now Lebanon and Israel. His naval biography records his involvement in the storming of Sidon and the bombardment of St Jean d’Acre.

Both were major actions. British and allied forces attacked fortified coastal positions held by the forces of Muhammad Ali of Egypt, helping to reshape the balance of power in the region.

Loring continued to rise through the Navy. He served as first lieutenant aboard several major ships of the line, including HMS Camperdown, HMS Queen and HMS Trafalgar. He was promoted commander on 25 July 1845 and later served as second captain of HMS Howe, a powerful 120-gun ship.

In 1841 he married Charlotte Jessy Jameson, daughter of James Jameson of the Bengal Medical Service, further connecting his family with Britain’s overseas service.

Hector Loring died in 1849, still only around forty years old.

His memorial at St Peter & St Paul preserves the story of a Fareham boy whose naval career took him from the rivers of Burma to Sri Lanka, North America, the Caribbean and the battlefields of the eastern Mediterranean.

By the age of forty he had already witnessed the capture of Rangoon, surveyed one of the great harbours of the Indian Ocean, fought at Sidon and Acre, and risen to command rank in the Royal Navy. His life is another reminder of how directly nineteenth-century Fareham was connected with events taking place thousands of miles away.