Tripti Joshi (Editor)

Hendrik Grave

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Died
  
1749 Amsterdam

Service/branch
  
Dutch Navy

Rank
  
Lieutenant Admiral

Allegiance
  
Dutch Republic

Years of service
  
1688–1749

Name
  
Hendrik Grave

Hendrik Grave

Hendrik Grave (Amsterdam, 5 December 1670- Amsterdam, 25 March 1749) was a Dutch admiral.

Life

On his eighteenth birthday, Grave entered the service of the Admiralty of Amsterdam, in 1691 becoming luitenant-ter-zee. In 1698, he became buitengewoon kapitein (captain-extraordinary). He married Lucia van Mollem in 1704 in the Waldensian church in Utrecht, and they had one son, Hendrik (1709–1738), and one daughter, Jacoba.

In 1713, Hendrik became a full captain. In 1716, Grave led a convoy to the Baltic Sea and in 1717 became commandeur with the Admiralty. In 1718 he became the owner of the fine Nieuwe Herengracht 99, well known for art connoisseurs due to the five gigantic hunting still lifes by Jan Weenix. By 1721 Hendrik Grave had moved to Kloveniersburgwal 95. In 1722, Hendrik Grave became schout-bij-nacht and was the following year put in command of a Dutch expedition against the Algerian pirates.

Due to a problem with his foot (called podagra, possibly meaning gout), Grave had himself tied onto his chair when there were storms. Grave …

delighted in the company of everybody, even of English colleagues, in wide-ranging talks and fencing language, sat gaming for days in succession in coffee houses in Portsmouth, afterwards falling into post-prandial sleep by the hearth. To the Lords of the Admiralty in London he wrote high-flown letters, laden with Latin quotations. Grave once entertained them with an exposition in Latin on the origin of his family with the North Brabantish Graves.

In 1742, he possessed four servants, a carriage, two horses and an income of 7,000 guilder a year. On 8 May 1744, at 73, he was made lieutenant-admiral of the Admiralty of the Noorderkwartier, jumping a rank as he never had been a vice admiral. Other officers protested at his appointment. After years of illness, he died at 78 and his funeral, as described by Braatbard, was an event of the first order, with the procession lasting three and a half hours.

References

Hendrik Grave Wikipedia