Lieutenant James Hunt, who was born in Oxford in 1817 and entered the Royal Navy as a 1st Class Volunteer in 1833, first witnessed active service as a Mate aboard H.M.S. Stromboli in the operations on, and off the coast of Syria in 1840. Participating in the storming of Sidon, he 'evinced a degree of zeal, activity, cool determination and courage, most animating to the men, and not to be surpassed. He was entrusted with the Colours, and ran a complete race with an Austrian Officer as to who should be the first to display his National Flag on the walls of the castle - an honourable rivalry in which he had the good fortune to come off successful'.

Appointed a Lieutenant aboard the Dido in 1841, he went on to see further action in the First Opium War, when he was present in the operations leading to the capture of Woosung and Shanghai, and in the engagements on the Yangtse-Kiang. On 21.5.1841, when off Point Datou on the coast of Borneo, and in command of a native-built boat, armed with a brass six pounder and two swivel-guns, and manned by 18 Officers, Ratings and Marines, he destroyed a Pirate Proa and defeated another, each of the latter being armed with about two guns and manned by 50 men. For this action, Hunt was 'Mentioned' in Letters of Approbation by both the C.-in-C., Sir William Parker, and the Board of the Admiralty. Invalided from the Dido in early 1845, he regained employment with the Navy later in the year.