I noticed this memorial at Christchurch Priory and anyone that has a stone plaque like this is likely to be quite important and often written about before and so I won’t linger too much on him. It’s dedicated to John Lloyd, Vice Admiral of the Blue, who died on 26 February 1778, aged 68. That title alone says a fair bit about him as he wasn’t just any seafarer, but a senior officer in the Royal Navy during the middle of the eighteenth century, a time when Britain’s power was very much measured by the size of its fleet and how effectively it could blow other nations out of the water. It certainly wasn’t a subtle little arrangement.
The design is typically Georgian, full of restrained elegance with a carved urn at the top and decorative flourishes that stop just short of being showy. Beneath John’s details, the inscription also remembers Elizabeth, his wife, who outlived him and went on to marry Gustavus Brander, Esq (which is quite a name and he has his own Wikipedia page) and who died in 1809 aged 78. It also notes that she was the daughter of Francis Gulston of Wyddial Hall, which sounds suitably grand and decadent.
Lloyd himself, as “Vice Admiral of the Blue”, would have been part of the Royal Navy’s colour-coded hierarchy, Blue being one of the three squadrons into which admirals were divided (Red, White and Blue). He’d have served through a period of near-constant conflict at sea and this leads me to a wonderful website that I’ve found called Three Decks which gives a comprehensive history of his appointments.
This website states that he joined around 31 August 1722 as an ordinary seaman on HMS Advice, moving up to become a Lieutenant on HMS Roebuck in 1733, then Captain of the Deal Castle in 1746, then Rear Admiral of the Blue in 1775, Rear Admiral of the Red in 1775 and Vice Admiral of the Blue in 1778.
I’m rather pleased to have discovered that website, a really detailed resource from the period.