BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIRS OF ROBERT RODDAM, ESQ. ADMIRAL OF THE WHITE SQUADRON

Summary

——— Sprung from an ancient race,

And early taught to tread the paths of honour.

Antiquity of family can never be opposed to personal merit; but when antiquity of family and personal merit meet together in the same individual, their union commands universal respect. The family of Roddam is supposed to be one of the most primeval in the British dominions. It can be traced to the time of the Saxon heptarchy, and upon an old pedigree of the family is written the following grant, which relates to the estate at present enjoyed by the Admiral :–

I, King Athelston, gives unto the Pole Roddam,

For mee and mine, to thee and thine,

Before my wife Maude, my daughter Maudlin, and my eldest son Henry,

And for a certen truth,

I bite this wax with my gang tooth,

So long as muir bears moss, and —— hare,

A Roddam of Roddam for ever mare.

The Roddams, of Roddam, in Northumberland, intermarried with the most ancient and respectable families in that county, and had originally possessed a great portion of the north part of Northumberland. The subject of these memoirs was the third son of Edward Roddam, Esq. by Jane, daughter of Robert Shelly, Esq. He went to sea as a Midshipman in the Lowestoffe frigate, in the year 1735-6. He served also as a Midshipman in the Russel, Cumberland, and Boyne, and was upon the Antigua station with Captain Drummond, of the Lowestoffe, more than five years.