A half-length portrait to the right showing Ussher in his captain's full dress uniform (over three years), 1830-33, wearing the CB and the star and neck decoration of a KCH; his right elbow rests on a gun barrel.
Thomas Ussher was the eldest son of the astronomer Dr Henry Ussher (1741–90). He entered the Navy in the ‘Squirrel’ in January 1791 and saw action in 1794 in the ‘Invincible’ at the Glorious First of June. He served in the ‘Prince George’, the ‘Glory’, the ‘Thunderer’, and the ‘Minotaur’. He was confirmed in the rank of lieutenant in the brig ‘Pelican’ on 17 July 1797. Appointed then to the ‘Trent’ in May 1799, he returned home in September 1800. Service followed in various cutters and brigs before he was promoted commander of the sloop ‘Redwing’, 18 guns, on 18 October 1806 and employed near Gibraltar defending trade from Spanish gunboats and privateers. His numerous acts of gallantry were rewarded with further promotion on 24 May 1808, freedom of the City of Dublin and a public dinner in his honour.
A series of commands followed. While in the ‘Undaunted’ near Marseilles in April 1814, he received news of Napoleon’s abdication and instructions to convey the ex-emperor to Elba. Napoleon came on board on 28 April and disembarked at Elba on 3 May. He later wrote an account of this incident, published in 1841 under the title ‘A narrative of events connected with the first abdication of Napoleon’. Ussher was knighted in 1831. Between that year and 1838 he was successively superintendent of the dockyards at Bermuda and Halifax. He was promoted rear-admiral on 9 November 1846 and the following July he was made commander-in-chief at Queenstown. He died in the Admiralty House there on 6 January 1848.