Chris Upton looks at how one of the great heroes of the Royal Navy made a mint throughout his career.

It’s ironic that one of the nation’s most celebrated naval heroes hailed from a county with no coastline.

It was in Staffordshire that George Anson was born in 1697 and where, 65 eventful years later, they brought him back to be buried. In between, you might have caught up with him in the Azores, the Caribbean, South America or China.

A naval career made Anson an extraordinarily wealthy man, the benefits of which were largely enjoyed by his brother, when he set about rebuilding Shugborough Hall.

George Anson remains a powerful hidden presence at Shugborough, despite the fact that he spent hardly any time there, once he relinquished rocking in his cradle for rocking in a hammock.

To say that Anson’s wealth came from piracy is perhaps to widen unduly the definition of the term. But the methods and the net results were little different, except that it was performed with the full approval of His Majesty’s government, and that the union flag flew from his mast.

It was at the age of 15 years that George first went to sea, effectively as a naval apprentice to learn the ropes on a vessel that had plenty of them. From then onwards his progress was swift. By 1716 he was made a lieutenant, and in 1719 the first lieutenant on a ship of the line called the Barfleur.

Three years after that Anson was given command of his first warship – the Weazle – protecting the fisheries of the North Sea, and so progressed to larger ships and greater responsibilities.

From 1724 to 1735 he spent most of his time patrolling the coast of Carolina, looking after British interests in contested waters.

The fact was that for the European powers – Spain, France and Britain in particular – the riches of the New World were an irresistible lure, and when they were not fighting to protect their own interests, they were attempting to infringe those of their rivals. It was a good time to be a naval captain.

The government, in turn, maintained the distant loyalty of their troops by allowing them to profit from whatever booty was seized from the enemy.

By the time he returned to Blighty in 1735 George Anson had already speculated to the tune of 17,000 acres of land in Carolina, the rent from which left him comfortably off already.

At the heart of the conflict was Spain’s jealously guarded monopoly on trade with South and Central America, which provided it with huge quantities of Peruvian and Mexican silver, as well as sugar, tobacco, dyes and spices from the Caribbean.

Legally unable to muscle in on this highly lucrative market, the British government nevertheless turned a blind eye to independent merchantmen operating out of Jamaica.

One such privateer was Robert Jenkins, who lost one of his ears attempting to defend his vessel from zealous Spanish coastguards.

Holding onto the precious organ, Jenkins dramatically displayed it to Parliament when he returned home.

And so began the War of Jenkins’ Ear. As a name, it had more of a ring to it (perhaps in it) than any number of Wars of the Austrian Succession.