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Captain J.J.C. Agassiz is described as living in Budleigh Salterton in the 1844 Directory of Devonshire, and the tithe apportionment of 1842 has him as lessee (from Lord Rolle) and occupier of 3 Marine Parade.  He appears in the 1841 census but is recorded there as John Agassiz living with wife Jane. 

The Agassiz family were originally from Lausanne in Switzerland, and James’s father David Louis (1737-1807) went to Paris to take a job in finance.  He moved to England and anglicised his name to Lewis Agassiz and was granted naturalisation by a private Act of Parliament in 1766.  In London he was dealing in cotton, silk, cocoa, coffee, tobacco and other tropical goods and had trade connections throughout Europe and in Russia, South America and the East and West Indies.  He amassed a fortune that would be worth many a fortune today.  Lewis had two sons and the eldest, Lewis born in 1770, was destined to take over his father’s business (1). 

James John Charles Agassiz was the younger son and he was born on 8th March 1772 at Margate (2) and christened at Saint Helen’s Bishopsgate, London that April (his father’s business was at 13 Little Saint Helens).  He joined the navy at a tender age on 30th December 1780 as servant to Captain Edmund Dodd of the ship Lizard (a common practice at that time).  He stayed for two years and then after another five he rejoined the navy in 1787 as a midshipman in the frigate Lowestoft when he would have been about fifteen years old.  He served for three years then left the navy again only to rejoin Mentor in August 1793 (3).  

In the period between these two ships he was apparently working for his father because in March 1792 he was described as “a merchant” when he married Ann Smith in Sidmouth.  Neither was living in Sidmouth because both are shown as “sojourner” in the register.  A son Lewis Agassiz was born to the pair in Exeter in March 1793 and from information sent to me by Alex Jacob it would appear that there was a second child Louise Eleanor born 15th February 1795.  Mr Jacob, quoting from a 1907 book on the family (1), says that his wife died as a result of toddler Lewis falling into a pond and being put into bed with his mother for warmth.  She had apparently only recently given birth to the new baby and caught a fatal chill.

From Mentor James rejoined Captain Dodd again, this time in the 98 gun Atlas, and he was promoted lieutenant into Trident in 1795.  He was present in August 1796 at the surrender of a Dutch Squadron in Saldanha Bay on the south-western coast of South Africa, north-west of Cape Town. 

He was moved to several ships in the fleet over the next few years.  On 21st August 1801 he was lieutenant in the sloop Hound and, commanding the ships’ boats along with Lieutenant Henry Le Vescombe, they attacked and destroyed six flat bottomed French gun vessels that had been driven ashore near St Valery and were being protected by a large number of military field-pieces. He was mentioned in dispatches by Lord Nelson for his zeal and gallantry. 

After eight months service in command of the brig Bold, in April 1802 he was promoted to the rank of Commander and took charge of the Anacreon defence ship and then the sloop Rattler.  Rattler was used to protect convoys to and from Newfoundland and the Western Isles, and he stayed with her until he was put on half pay in October 1809 (3). 

He married his second wife Eliza Alured in Fleggburgh near Yarmouth in August 1799 and they had four children (2).  His second son James David, his first son with Eliza, was born near Durdam Down in Bristol in January 1801.  James and Eliza then had a second son Henry born on 23rd August 1802 in Gorleston, near Yarmouth, followed by two daughters, Louise Frances born in February 1804 and Mary in June 1805 in Fleggburgh. 

What James did after he left the navy is a mystery. His second wife died in 1827 and he remarried on the 9th October 1828 in Wellington, Somerset, to a widow Jane Prince (3).  I concur with Mr Jacobs’ view that they were probably living in Somerset as we know that James’s daughter Louise from his second marriage died in Exeter in 1835 but is buried in Milverton, Somerset.

He eventually was retired with the rank of Captain on 10th September 1840 and must have come to Budleigh Salterton almost immediately.  As mentioned above, he is referred to as John in the 1841 census which is undoubtedly a transcription error.  His wife is given as Jane, which is correct.  He had moved to Exeter by 1850 because White’s Directory has him living at 7 St James' Place.  He died in Exeter in the autumn of 1857 and was buried in Milverton (3).  His widow was living in Exeter at the time of the 1861 and 1871 censuses.  She died in 1872.

Two of James’s sons followed military careers.  James David (1801-1871) retired as a Commander RN in 1861 and died in Lion House, Louisa Terrace, Exmouth.  His elder brother Lewis (1793-1866) served as a midshipman in the Navy on a ship commanded by his father for about two years, and then, on 21st August, 1809, was gazetted 2nd Lieutenant in the Royal Marine Light Infantry.  His war services are recorded in Hart's Army  List, 1865, as follows:- 

“Lieutenant Agassiz served at the defence of Cadiz and on the expedition to Malaga in 1810. He was at the blockade of Toulon in 1811-12, including partial actions and affairs of boats. Served with the 3rd Battalion Royal Marines during the American War in 1814-15, including the operations in Chesapeake Bay, battle of Bladensburg, capture of Washington, advance on Baltimore, taking of Fort Point Pitre and the town of St. Mary's, in Georgia, and other services performed there during the war." 

He was awarded a Coat of Arms for leading one of the firing parties that destroyed public buildings in Washington DC in 1814 during that war (1); (the instructions were not to burn private property and Lewis carried out his instructions punctiliously – unlike some others). 

He travelled widely and wrote “A Journey to Switzerland” in 1833; he became a friend of the King of Prussia who was godfather to one of his children.  In 1851 he was living with his family in Colleton Crescent, Exeter but died at his home Stour Lodge in Essex.

Compiled and Researched by Roger Lendon, © 2010

(1)A Short History of the English Branch of the Agassiz Family A.R.N. Agassiz (1907) & Life, Letters, and Works of Louis Agassiz (1896) Jules Marcou.

(2)FamilySearch.org 

(3)Information from Alex Jacob

(4)British Naval Biographical Dictionary 1849

BS-B-00024 Biography 87 any