Sir Peter Warren

Politician and Sailor

Sir Peter Warren, naval officer and politician, was a son of Michael Warren of Warrenstown county Meath, Ireland, and his wife Catherine (Aylmer). He followed his brother Oliver (d.1724) into the navy and served in the West Indies and on the American station. In 1731 he married Susannah Delancey of New York (her brother James was Chief Justice of New York). They had six children but their only son and a daughter died in an epidemic in 1744. Their daughter Anne married Charles Fitzroy, later Baron Southampton, and daughter Charlotte married the Earl of Abingdon.

Warren was naval commander at the taking of Louisburg and in 1747 was promoted Vice Admiral, also becoming a Member of Parliament for Westminster. He died of a fever on 29th July 1752 and was buried at Warrenstown.

Monument

His widow erected a memorial for him in the north transept of Westminster Abbey. It shows a figure of Hercules placing a bust of the Admiral on the pedestal, while a female figure of Navigation sits on the other side on a cornucopia, which includes coins, leaves and fruit spilling out. The small pox scars on his face are shown.

The monument, erected in 1757, is signed by the sculptor Louis Francois Roubiliac. The large carved flag behind the bust was removed in the late 19th century. The inscription reads:

Sacred to the memory of Sir Peter Warren Knight of the Bath, Vice Admiral of the Red Squadron of the British Fleet, and Member of Parliament for the City and Liberty of Westminster. He derived his descent from an antient family of Ireland, his fame and honours from his virtues and abilities. How eminently these were displayed, with what vigilance and spirit they were exerted, in the various services wherein he had the honour to command, and the happiness to conquer, will be more properly recorded in the annals of Great Britain. On this tablet, affection with truth must say, that deservedly esteemed in private life and universally renowned for his publick conduct, the judicious and gallant officer possessed all the amiable qualities of the friend, the gentleman and the Christian. But the Almighty whom alone he feared, and whose gracious protection he had often experienced, was pleased to remove him from a life of honour, to an eternity of happiness, on the 29th day of July 1752 in the 49th year of his age. Susannah his afflicted wife caused this monument to be erected.