GAMBIER, JAMES GAMBIER, BARON English admiral, was born on Oct. 13, 1756, at the Bahamas, of which his father, John Gambier, was lieutenant-governor. Family interest procured him rapid promotion in the navy, which he entered in 1767, and in 1778 he was raised to the rank of post captain and appointed to the "Raleigh," in which he took part in the capture of Charlestown (1780). He commanded the "De fence" in the war of the French Revolution. For his services in the battle of June I (1794) he received a gold medal and was made colonel of the marines, and the following year he became rear-admiral and a lord of the Admiralty. From 1804 he remained at the Admiralty, with a short break in 1806, until 1807, when he was given command of the Baltic fleet, which in concert with Lord Cathcart's army enforced the surrender of the Danish navy. He received the thanks of Parliament, and was rewarded with a peerage.
In 1808 he gave up his seat at the Admiralty on being appointed to the command of the Channel fleet. In this capacity he missed the opportunity of destroying the French fleet in Basque roads, by failing to give effective support to Lord Cochrane. Although he was acquitted on the charge of delay and neglect of duty by a partisan court-martial, his incompetence is undoubted. He re tained command of the Channel fleet for the full period of three years. In 1814 he was made G.C.B. for his offices in negotiating a treaty of peace with the United States, and in 1830 was raised to the rank of fleet admiral. He died on April 19, 1833. Although he was an upright man himself, Lord Gambier's membership of the Admiralty was marked by scandalous maladministration, and his command of the fleet in the Bay of Biscay was equally unfor tunate.
See the so-called Memorials, Personal and Historical, of Admiral Lord Gambier by Lady Chatterton (186r) ; Minutes of a Court Mar tial, holden on board his Majesty's ship Gladiator on the Trial of Lord Gambier (Portsmouth, 1809) ; J. Marshall, Royal Naval Biography (6 vol., ; J. Ralfe, The Naval Biography of Great Britain (4 vol., 1828) ; D. Cochrane, Lord Dundonald, The Autobiography of a Seaman (189o) ; and general history of the period.