Colonel Richard Turbervill Ansell was born in Weymouth, Dorset in 1831 and was commissioned in the Portsmouth Division of the Royal Marines as a 2nd Lieutenant in 1847. Advanced to Lieutenant in the following year, he joined the Steam Sloop H.M.S. Tiger and proceeded in her to the Black Sea where he participated in the attack on Odessa on 24.4.1854. On 12th of the following month, the Tiger ran aground in dense fog, five miles S.E. of Odessa and was shelled and set on fire by a Russian Field Artillery Battery. During the proceedings of a subsequent Court-Martial it emerged that Ansell attended the Pivot Gun, the only weapon to be used in action before the crew surrendered. Exchanged with an enemy prisoner in July 1854, as was the custom of the time, he went on to witness further action in the Baltic aboard the Duke of Wellington, and commanded a R.M.A. Detachment on a Mortar Vessel at the bombardment of Sveaborg in August 1855. Mentioned in Despatches (London Gazette 20.8.1855 refers). Ansell was advanced to Lieutenant-Colonel in 1876 and placed on the Retired List with the honorary rank of Colonel in 1879.