Admiral Thomas Cochrane, 10th Earl of Dundonald, 1st Marquess of Maranhão, GCB, ODM (14 December 1775 – 31 October 1860), styled Lord Cochrane between 1778 and 1831,[1][2] was a Scottish naval flag officer and radical politician.
He was a daring and successful captain of the Napoleonic Wars, leading the French to nickname him Le Loup des Mers ('The Sea Wolf').
He was dismissed from the Royal Navy in 1814, following a conviction for fraud on the Stock Exchange and he then served in the rebel navies of Chile, Brazil and Greece during their respective wars of independence.
In 1832, he was pardoned and reinstated in the Royal Navy with the rank of Rear Admiral of the Blue. After several further promotions, he died in 1860 with the rank of Admiral of the Red, and the honorary title of Rear-Admiral of the United Kingdom.
His life and exploits served as one source of inspiration for the naval fiction of nineteenth and twentieth-century novelists, particularly C. S. Forester's Horatio Hornblower and Patrick O'Brian's Jack Aubrey.
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Cochrane's father Archibald Cochrane, 9th Earl of Dundonald.

Thomas Cochrane was born at Annsfield, near Hamilton, South Lanarkshire, Scotland, the son of Archibald Cochrane, 9th Earl of Dundonald and Anna Gilchrist. She was the daughter of Captain James Gilchrist and Ann Roberton, the daughter of Major John Roberton, 16th Laird of Earnock.[3]
Cochrane had six brothers. One was Major William Erskine Cochrane of the 15th Dragoon Guards, who served with distinction under Sir John Moore in the Peninsular War. Another was Captain Archibald Cochrane.
Cochrane was descended from lines of Scottish aristocracy and military service on both sides of his family. Through his uncle, Admiral Sir Alexander Forrester Inglis Cochrane the sixth son of the 8th Earl of Dundonald, Cochrane was cousin to his namesake Sir Thomas John Cochrane who also enjoyed a distinguished naval career[4] and became Governor of Newfoundland and later Vice-Admiral of the United Kingdom. The family fortune had been spent by 1793 and the family estate was sold to cover debts.[5]

[Early life
ِadmiral Cochrane bust in Culross

Cochrane spent much of his early life in Culross, Fife, where his family had an estate. There is now a bust in his honour outside the Culross Town House.
Through the influence of his uncle, Alexander Cochrane, he was listed as a member of the crew on the books of four Royal Navy ships starting when he was five years old.This common, though unlawful practice (called false muster), was a means of acquiring the years of service required for promotion, if and when he joined the Navy. His father secured him a commission in the British Army at an early age, but Cochrane preferred the Navy, which he joined in 1793 upon the outbreak of the French Revolutionary Wars

On 23 July 1793, aged 17, Cochrane joined the navy as a midshipman, spending his first months at Sheerness in a sixth-rate frigate, the 28-gun HMS Hind, commanded by his uncle, Captain Alexander Cochrane.[7] He then transferred to the 38-gun fifth rate HMS Thetis, also under his uncle's command. While on the Thetis he visited Norway then served at the North America station.[8] There, in 1795, he was appointed acting lieutenant. The following year, on 27 May 1796, he was commissioned lieutenant, after passing the examination.[8] After several transfers in America and a return home, he found himself as 8th Lieutenant on Lord Keith's flagship HMS Barfleur in the Mediterranean in 1798.[9]

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Archibald Cochrane, 9th Earl of Dundonald (1 January 1748 – 1 July 1831) was a Scottish nobleman and inventor..
He married three times. His first wife was Anne Gilchrist, daughter of Captain James Gilchrist whom he married in 1774. After her death, he married Isabella Raymond, daughter of Samuel Raymond, in 1788.
His third wife was Anna Maria Plowden, daughter of Francis Plowden whom he married in 1819. He had four sons: Thomas Cochrane who was a highly successful Royal Navy officer, Basil Cochrane who briefly served in the Royal Navy before transferring to the British Army, William Erskine Cochrane who served in the British Army and Archibald Cochrane who also served in the Royal Navy. His younger brother Sir Alexander Cochrane was a senior Royal Navy commander during the Napoleonic Wars