Rochfort Maguire

Rochfort Maguire
Portrait by Stephen Pearce
Commander-in-Chief, Australia Station
In office 23 May 1866 – 28 May 1867 (1866-05-23 – 1867-05-28)
Preceded by	Sir William Wiseman
Succeeded by	Rowley Lambert
Personal details
Born	(1815-06-18)18 June 1815 County Westmeath, Ireland
Died	29 June 1867(1867-06-29) (aged 52) Gosport, Hampshire, England
Awards	Arctic Medal, 1818–55
Military service
Branch	Royal Navy
Service years	1830–1867
Rank	Commodore
Conflict	Oriental Crisis of 1840

Rochfort Maguire (18 June 1815 – 29 June 1867) was an Irish Royal Navy officer who served as captain of HMS Plover from 1852 to 1853 during the Franklin search expedition.

Maguire joined the Royal Navy in 1830.^[1] He came to notice when he was wounded in action in 1840 at Sidon whilst serving on HMS Wasp under Sir Charles Napier.^[2] He was mentioned in despatches and as a result he was promoted to lieutenant on HMS Vernon in the Mediterranean.^[2]

Maguire was assigned to the Franklin search expedition in 1848. They sailed out of Plymouth on a mission to find the lost remains of John Franklin's ill-fated Northwest Passage expedition of 1845. Maguire was made captain of HMS Plover from 1852 to 1854.^[1]

Promoted to captain in 1855, he was given command of HMS Sans Pareil, HMS Imperieuse, HMS Chesapeake, and then HMS Galatea.^[1]

He became commander-in-chief of Australian Station on 23 May 1866, before he was invalidated out on 28 May 1867. He died a month later, on 29 June, at Royal Hospital Haslar.^[1]

• O'Byrne, William R. (1849). "Maguire, Rochfort" . A Naval Biographical Dictionary. London: John Murray. p. 709.
• Sabine, E. (1857). "On hourly observations of the magnetic declination made by Captain Rochfort Maguire". Philos. Trans. R. Soc. 147: 497–532. JSTOR 108630.

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Rochfort Maguire.

• Works by Rochfort Maguire at Open Library
• Works by or about Rochfort Maguire at the Internet Archive