Charles Edward Inglis, 1875 - 1952

Abstract

Charles Edward Inglis was the second surviving son of Dr Alexander Inglis, M.D., M.R.C.S.E., of Auchindinny and Redhall, and of his first wife, Florence, the second daughter of John Frederick Feeney, proprietor of the Birmingham Daily Post, whose family founded the Feeney Art Gallery in that city. The Inglis family of Auchindinny appear first as tenants and afterwards owners of the farm of Langbyres, which adjoins the west side of Murdostoun in the parish of Shotts, Lanarkshire. The first mention of them in connexion with the place is found in the Lord High Treasurer’s accounts for 1543 when John Inglis in Langbyres and James Kneland in Swyntre had to pay £13 6s. 8d. to redeem their movable goods, which had been escheated as a penalty for their absence from the army, mustered by James V to invade England, which was routed at Solway Moss. The estate of Auchindinny, about 730 acres, was purchased in 1702 by one John Inglis, a Writer to the Signet, who had succeeded to Langbyres in 1685. Auchindinny lies about eight miles south of Edinburgh, on the right bank of the North Esk and at the south end of the parish of Lasswade. The house, completed in 1707, is a severe substantial sandstone building. John Inglis had eleven children. One of his grand-daughters, Barbara, co-heiress of Archibald, Laird of Auchindinny, married in 1777 her cousin, Captain, afterwards Admiral, John Inglis, R.N., of Redhall, whose father had left Scotland and settled in Philadelphia as a merchant about 1736. Captain Inglis commanded H.M.S. Belliqueux at the battle of Camperdown. The ship took a conspicuous share in the fighting, there being a hundred and three casualties out of a complement of four hundred and ninety-one, and quite redeemed the character which she had lost in the Mutiny at the Nore a few months earlier. It is said that the Captain was puzzled in the battle by his Admiral’s frequent signals and at last threw his signal book on deck exclaiming, ‘Damn the signals; up wi’ the hellem and gang into the middle o’ it’. He thus anticipated Nelson’s celebrated memorandum that ‘when a captain should be at a loss he cannot do very wrong if he lay his ship alongside of the enemy’.