Richard Eliot, R.N. (1733 - 1747)

Richard was the second son and fourth child of Richard Eliot and Harriot Craggs, known to family and friends as "Dick".

Sadly, very little is remembered of this young Eliot. He was born at Molenick on 16 Jul 1733, making his appearance at three o'clock in the morning. After his baptism, four days later, nothing is heard about Dick for the next ten or eleven years of his unseasonably-short life. It was then that his likeness was painted by Joshua Reynolds, in one of the legendary artist's earliest works. (One can't help but notice that the son bore a remarkable resemblance to the father.)

At the age of eleven, Dick entered the Royal Navy as Captain's Servant, to Captain John Hamilton (who would later marry Dick's widowed mother), aboard the H.M.S. Augusta. Two years later, in 1746, Dick was promoted to the rank of Midshipman.

Shortly after this promotion, he must have returned home to Port Eliot, to sit for the famous Reynolds family-group painting. In this last-known portrait of Dick, Reynolds placed him near his sister, Elizabeth, and Captain Hamilton. Sadly, the family's happiness was short-lived. Dick died the next year, on 28 April 1747, while the "Augusta" was at Kinsale, County Cork, Ireland, and was laid to rest in the St. Multose churchyard.

At the time of Dick's death, his older brother, Edward (later 1st Lord Eliot), was traveling through Switzerland with Rev. Walter Harte. This tutor and friend (Harte) sent a poetic epitaph to Port Eliot, to be used as an inscription for Dick's memorial. The memorial (designed to be a plain urn surrounded by an oval of marble) never materialized, though, as no monument was ever erected to young Richard's memory, either at Kinsale or St. Germans.

A century after Dick's death, William (4th Earl of St. Germans) found the letter containing the poem and remarked that the family "can hardly regret that these lines were not inscribed on an imperishable material." While the Earl may not have cared for the poem, it's now the only memorial marking the untimely death of this young Eliot.

To the Memory of Richard Eliot, Esq

Here lies who once did all our thoughts employ,
Of parents, kindred, friends the hope & joy,
A youth - who scarce had reach'd the fourteenth year,
Yet modest, grateful, honest & sincere.
Life's sportive hours he pass'd midst waves & war,
At once thy pride, O Hamilton, & care.
Young as he was, a fear he never knew,
Young as he was, each word he spoke was true.
As man intrepid, yet as woman mild
& only in simplicity, a child.
O Parents, Brothers, Sisters, cease to mourn,
Cease with fresh streaming tears to bathe his urn.
His worth once measur'd, deem not short the race,
Much life he ran, for rapid was the pace.