John Holmes (Royal Navy officer)
British Royal Navy officer (1640?–1683)
Admiral Sir John Holmes (1640? – 28 May 1683) was an English naval leader who rose to be Commander-in-Chief of the fleet in the English Channel (1677–79) and was the younger brother of the more famous Admiral Sir Robert Holmes.
Military career
Holmes served in his brother's expedition to West Africa in 1663–1664. At the Battle of Lowestoft in 1665, and until June the following year, he commanded the Paul.
He also fought in the St James's Day Battle, as captain of the 48-gun Bristol. He was then promoted to command of a second-rate, Triumph, of 64 guns. In 1670-1 he was in Vice Admiral Sir Edward Spragge's expedition against the corsairs of Algiers.
He commanded the Gloucester (62 guns) in the attack on the Dutch Smyrna fleet in 1672, which opened the Third Anglo-Dutch War, capturing one of the Dutch ships though it sank almost immediately because of damage inflicted in the fight. He was wounded, and following this action, knighted, and appointed to command the 66-gun HMS Rupert, in which he fought at the Battle of Solebay in 1672, and a number of the battles of the following year.
At the First Battle of Schooneveld he was mentioned in dispatches.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated May 8, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q6239659. VIAF identifies the subject as 36537580. The Library of Congress control number is no98085048. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1640, 1683, 1677 and 1663.
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