Vice-Admiral William O'Bryen Drury was a senior officer of the British Royal Navy during the Napoleonic Wars. He was born in County Cork, Ireland to Edward Drury (1722–1785) and Ann Drury née Maule. His nephew was homeopathic pioneer Dr. Edward Cronin.

HMS Powerful was a 74-gun third rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy. She took part in the defeat of a Dutch fleet in the Battle of Camperdown in 1797, the capture of a French privateer in the action of 9 July 1806, in operations against the Dutch in the East Indies during the raids on Batavia and Griessie in 1806 and 1807, and finally in the Walcheren Campaign during 1809.