Shuldham Peard
Royal Navy officer during the American War of Independence, and the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, rising to vice-admiral.
Shuldham Peard (1761 – 27 December 1832) was an officer of the Royal Navy. He rose to the rank of vice-admiral after seeing service in the American War of Independence, and the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. He was the father of John Whitehead Peard, who was known as 'Garibaldi's Englishman'.
Family and early life
Shuldham Peard was born at Penryn, Cornwall in 1761, the third son of Captain George Peard. Shuldham was baptised at St Gluvias on 29 October. At the age of ten he was entered on the books of HMS Fly, and afterwards on those of HMS Racehorse, as an able seaman. He probably first went afloat in 1776, in the 64-gun HMS Worcester, with Captain Mark Robinson; he was afterwards in HMS Martin with Captain William Parker, and in HMS Thetis with Captain John Gell on the Newfoundland Station. In 1779, having been sent away in command of a prize, he was taken prisoner and carried into Cádiz. On his return to England he passed his examination on 6 April 1780, and on 26 April was promoted to the rank of lieutenant. In June 1780 he was appointed to the 74-gun HMS Edgar, one of the ships of the Channel Fleet, and continued in her until February 1782, taking part in the relief of Gibraltar in April 1781.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Shuldham Peard” is royal Navy officer during the American War of Independence, and the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, rising to vice-admiral. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Shuldham, Peard and Royal, not as a finished interpretation.
Why this record matters
The phrase “royal Navy officer during the American War of Independence, and the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, rising to vice-admiral” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
The record creator and administrative purpose are central evidence, because official documentation reflects both action and institutional priorities. The source revision retrieved here is dated May 9, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q7504910. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1761, 1832, 1776 and 1779.
Official terminology may obscure informal participation, dissent or communities documented only indirectly. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Compare institutional narratives with records created by participants and affected communities. Dates and formal titles are useful anchors, but not substitutes for context.
- Event chronology
- Institutional context
- Locating named record creators
Contemporary correspondence, government or organizational records, oral histories and cited historical scholarship.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Shuldham Peard”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Shuldham Peard primary sources, Shuldham Peard archive and Shuldham research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Shuldham Peard”?
- Who created the surviving record, and for what administrative purpose?
- Which voices are present, absent or mediated by the institution?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Shuldham Peard” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.