Captain Sir James Brisbane, CB was a British Royal Navy officer of the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. Although never engaged in any major actions, Brisbane served under both Lord Howe and Horatio Nelson and performed important work at the Cape of Good Hope, prior to the Battle of Copenhagen and in the Adriatic campaign of 1807–1814. In later life Brisbane became commander-in-chief in the East Indies. He contracted dysentery in Burma and arrived in Port Jackson in Sydney aboard HMS Warspite, where he died on 19 December 1826. He was a cousin of General Sir Thomas Brisbane who had earlier been governor of New South Wales.
Squadron attacking Fort Maurigio in 1814, from a sketch by James Brisbane
The memorial to Sir James Brisbane in St James' Church, Sydney
HMS Warspite was a 74-gun third-rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy, launched in 1807. She served in the Napoleonic Wars and was decommissioned in 1815. She was re-rated as a 76-gun ship in 1817 and then circumnavigated the world in 1826-27, visiting Australia. She was cut down to a single decker 50-gun frigate in 1840 and was decommissioned in 1846. She was lent as a boys' training ship to The Marine Society and was lost to fire in 1876.
The Warspite returning to Spithead from her voyage round the World, 28 July 1827
The Lord High Admiral returning from his inspection of the Warspite on 31 July 1827 by Henry Moses
The burning of the Training-Ship 'Warspite' off Woolwich, sketched [by Walter William May] on the Day of the Disaster - from an 1876 issue of The Graphic.