Christopher Billopp (Royal Navy officer)

"Bentley Manor", now known as "The Conference House"

Christopher Billopp (ca.1638 - 1726) was a captain in the British Royal Navy in the seventeeth century who commanded various ships of the line including the HMS Greenwich in the Battle of Bantry Bay After his service to the British Crown he was granted a land patent of 932 acres on Staten Island in the colony of New York, where he built a stone manor house he named "Bentley Manor", after the name of a small ship he commanded the "Bentley".

The house, inherited by his great grandson Colonel Christopher Billopp a British Loyalist during the American Revolution, was the setting for a failed peace conference between Lord Howe and members of the Continental Congress. His house is now a United States National Historic Landmark known as the Conference House.

Naval Career

HMS Victory, One of the ships captained by Christopher Billopp

Billopp served on a variety of Royal Navy ships:

• HMS Suffolk during the Battle of Barfleur
• HMS Ossory
• HMS London
• HMS Greenwich during the Battle of Bantry Bay
• HMS Victory
• HMS Deptford: a 10 gun ketch.

In New York

Billopp served for a time as a lieutenant in command of an infantry detachment under colonial governor Edmund Andros.