Memorial in Lisburn Cathedral
This Marble is sacred to the Memory of Lieutenant William DOBBS a Naval Officer.
Who terminated his Career of Virtue by an illustrious Display of Valour.
On board one of his Majesties’ Sloops of War. Where endeavouring to snatch Victory from Fortune.
In opposition to superior Force. He fell a self-devoted Victim to his Country. His body refts in the Element on which Great Britain has long rode triumphant. By the Exertions of Men like Him.
His afflicted Townsmen by strewing Laurels over this empty Monument derive honour to themselves:
They can add nothing to his Famer:
He was born at Lisburn on the 22nd day of September 1746 to Richard and Mary Dobbs, nee Young and died of his wounds on board the Drake the 26th of April 1778, he was buried at sea from HMS Drake
He was severely wounded the evening of the 24th April 1778 during the North Channel (off Carrickfergus.) naval duel was a single-ship action between the United States Continental Navy sloop of war Ranger (Captain John Paul Jones) and the British Royal Navy sloop of war Drake (Captain George Burdon) on the evening of 24 April 1778. Fought in the North Channel, separating Ireland from Scotland, it was the first American naval success within Atlantic waters, and also very nearly the only American naval victory in the Revolutionary War achieved without an overwhelming superiority of force. The action was one of a series of actions by Jones that brought the American War of Independence to British waters.
After the battle the American party boarded Drake and started rounding up prisoners and making good the damage done to the ship. The captured ship was later sold in 1779 to Jean Peltier-Dudoyer, a shipowner of Nantes.
He was Naval Officer on board H.M.S. Drake
