Sir Fairfax Moresby | |
|---|---|
 Moresby as Admiral of the Fleet, 1870 | |
| Born | 29 November 1786 Calcutta, Bengal Presidency, British India |
| Died | 21 January 1877 (aged 90) Exmouth, Devon, England |
| Buried | |
| Allegiance |  United Kingdom |
| Service |  Royal Navy |
| Years of service | 1799 - 1870 |
| Rank | Admiral of the Fleet |
| Commands | HMS Eclair HMS Acorn HMS Wizard HMS Menai HMS Pembroke HMS Canopus Pacific Station |
| Battles / wars | French Revolutionary Wars Napoleonic Wars |
| Awards | Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath |
| Relations | Rear Admiral John Moresby (son), L. Adams Beck (granddaughter) |
Admiral of the Fleet Sir Fairfax Moresby GCB (29 November 1786 – 21 January 1877) was a Royal Navy officer. As a junior officer he took part in the unsuccessful expedition to capture Ferrol in Spain during the French Revolutionary Wars. He later saw action during the blockade of Brest during the Napoleonic Wars before becoming commanding officer of a sloop which was sent to the Aegean Sea to defend the population of Malta from pirates; the grateful people presented him with a sword. He then sailed to the Adriatic Sea where he led a naval brigade providing artillery support to the Austrian forces during the siege of Trieste. He went on to be senior naval officer at the Cape of Good Hope and then senior officer at Mauritius, with orders to suppress the slave trade: he concluded the Moresby Treaty with Seyyid Said, the imam of Muscat, restricting the scope of local slave trading and conferring on English warships the right of searching and seizing local vessels.
Moresby later became Commander-in-Chief of the Pacific Station. His main responsibility was to protect British commercial interests in Valparaíso in the face of unrest among the people of Chile. He also took an interest in Pitcairn Islands at this time and planned the emigration of the islanders to Norfolk Island.