(Updated, March 2019) A half-length portrait to the left showing Curtis in vice-admiral’s full dress uniform (1795-1812 pattern), wearing the medal and chain for the Battle of 1 June 1794. Painted in about 1800 this portrait entered the collection in 1950 as a pair with a half-length of Howe (BHC2789).

Roger Curtis entered the Navy in 1762, serving in the 100-gun ‘Royal Sovereign’. Following the end of the Seven Years War, he saw service off the West African coast, at Portsmouth, in Newfoundland, and as part of the Channel Fleet. He was promoted lieutenant on 19 January 1771 and was sent back to Newfoundland in the sloop ‘Otter’. Transferring to the North American station in 1775, Curtis was made second lieutenant of Molyneux Shuldham’s flagship, the 50-gun ‘Chatham’. Here he was appointed to the command of the sloop ‘Senegal’ on 11 July 1776 and made flag captain of the 64-gun ‘Eagle’ by Lord Howe on 30 April the following year. He returned to Britain with Howe in October 1778. Service followed in the Mediterranean and at Gibraltar in the 36-gun ‘Brilliant’; the ship was eventually paid off in January 1784, Curtis having been knighted for his part in defending Gibraltar from Spanish siege. From May of that year until December 1787, he commanded the 74-gun ‘Ganges’, the guardship at Portsmouth. After a period on half-pay, in May 1790 he joined Howe again as flag captain of the 100-gun ‘Queen Charlotte’ before commanding the 74-gun guardship ‘Brunswick’ until early 1793. He then returned to the ‘Queen Charlotte’ as Howe's Captain of the Fleet, seeing action at the Battle of 1 June 1794. Since Howe was also overall Commander-in-Chief, Curtis served as commodore in the uniform of a rear-admiral and was rewarded commensurately, including receiving the flag-officers' gold medal and chain in which he is shown in this portrait. (It was the first action for which gold medals were struck and the only one for which flag officers also received chains, ribbons being substituted thereafter.) Curtis was raised to baronet and promoted to rear-admiral on 4 July 1794. A number of short commands followed and he was made vice-admiral on 14 February 1798. In May 1800 he was appointed commander-in-chief at the Cape of Good Hope, flying his flag in the 64-gun ‘Lancaster’.

Curtis was made admiral on 23 April 1804 and the next year was appointed to the commission for revising the civil affairs of the Navy, which absorbed his energies until the end of 1807. From early 1809 until April 1812, he was commander-in-chief at Portsmouth, his last post, during which he oversaw the court martial of Admiral Lord Gambier. Both his sons entered naval service: the elder, Roger, died as a post captain on 12 July 1802; the other, Lucius, became an admiral of the fleet and died in 1869.