HOTHAM, WILLIAM HOTHAM, 1ST BARON, cr. 1797 British admiral, son of Sir Beaumont Hotham (d.
1771), was educated at Westminster School and at the Royal Naval Academy, Portsmouth. He entered the navy in 1751 and served with distinction through the Seven Years' War. In 1776, as a commodore, Hotham served in North American waters, and shared in the brilliant action in the Cul de Sac of St. Lucia (Dec. 15, 1778). In 1781, when he was sent home in charge of a large convoy of merchantmen, he fell in with a powerful French squadron off Scilly, against which he could effect nothing, and many of the merchantmen went to France as prizes. In 1782 Hotham was with Howe at the relief of Gibraltar. As Hood's second-in-command in the Mediterranean he was engaged against the French Revolutionary navy, and when his chief retired Co England the command devolved upon him. On March 12, 1794, he fought an indecisive fleet action, in which the brunt of the fighting was borne by Captain Horatio Nelson, and some months later, now a full admiral, he again engaged, this time under con ditions which might have permitted a decisive victory; of this affair Nelson wrote home that it was a "miserable action." He died in 1813.
See Charnock, Biographia navalis, vi. 236.