Portrait of Charles Napier

Charles Napier

British Royal Navy admiral

Lived
1786–1860

Updated September 2026

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About Charles Napier

Admiral Sir Charles John Napier was a British naval officer and politician who served for sixty years in the Royal Navy, seeing action in the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, War of 1812, Syrian War and Crimean War. For a period he also commanded the Portuguese Navy during the Liberal Wars. An innovator concerned with the development of ironclads, and an advocate of human reforms in the Royal Navy, Napier was also active in politics as a Liberal Member of Parliament and was probably the naval officer most widely known to the public in the early Victorian era.

Biography from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Photo via Wikimedia Commons.

Sources: book lists and dates from Wikidata and Open Library, ratings from Open Library readers, free texts from Project Gutenberg. Last updated September 2026.