Admiral Molyneux Shuldham, 1st Baron Shuldham ( – 30 September 1798) was an officer of the British Royal Navy. He served for a time as colonial governor of Newfoundland. Family and early life Molyneux Shuldham was born in Ireland c. 1717, and was the second son of the Reverend Lemuel Shuldham, by his wife Elizabeth, daughter of Daniel Molyneux of Ballymulvy, of County Longford. Molyneux entered the navy in 1732 as captain's servant on board , with Captain George Forbes (afterwards Earl of Granard and governor of County Longford). He afterwards served in with Captain Charles Fanshawe, and for upwards of four years in with Fitzroy Henry Lee. He passed his examination on 25 January 1739, being then described on his certificate as 'near twenty-two.' According to the statement in Charnock, he was not seventeen. On 31 August 1739 he was promoted to be lieutenant of , one of the ships which went out to the West Indies with Sir Chaloner Ogle, and took part in the unsuccessful attack on Cartagena in 1741. In 1742 he was first lieutenant of her when, on 21 September, she was set on fire in a drunken squabble between a marine and the purser's boy and burnt, with a large proportion of the ship's company. Shuldham, with the captain and other officers, was tried by court-martial on 15 October but was acquitted of all blame. Command He was promoted to commander of in Jamaica on 1 May 1744. On 9 November 1745 he was attacked and captured by two Spanish privateers off the Black River, after stiff resistance. Shuldham suffered mistreatment by privateers, but was compensated by the Spanish governor of Havana. After finally returning to England, he was promoted to be captain of on 12 May 1746, then employed on the coast of Scotland; in December 1748 he was appointed to , and in March 1749 to . In October 1754 he was appointed to , from which, in March 1755, he was moved to the 60-gun , going out to the West Indies, where, near Martinique on 11 March 1756, she fell in with a French 74-gun ship and two frigates, which overpowered and captured her. Seven Years' War War had not then been declared, but hostilities had been going on for several months, as Shuldham very well knew, and the story that he mistook the enemy's ships of war for merchantmen