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BYNG, GEORGE, Lord Viscount Torrington, a distinguished English admiral, was born in 1663. At the age of fifteen he went to sea as a volunteer with the king's warrant. After being several times advanced, he was in 1702 raised to the command of the Nassau, a third rate, and was at the taking and burning of the French fleet at Vigo; and the next year he was made rear-admiral of the red. In 1704 he served in the grand fleet sent to the Mediterranean under Sir Cloudsley Shovel as rear-admiral of the red; and reduced Gibraltar. He was in the battle of Malaga, which followed soon afterwards; and for his gallantry in that action received the honour of knighthood. In 1718 he was made admiral and commander-in-chief of the fleet, and was sent with a squadron into the Mediterranean for the protection of Italy. This commission he executed so well, that the king made him a handsome present, and sent him full powers to negotiate with the princes and states of Italy, as there should be occasion. He procured the emperor's troops free access into the fortresses which still held out in Sicily, sailed afterwards to Malta, and brought out the Sicilian galleys, and a ship belonging to the Turkey company. Soon afterwards he received an autograph letter from the Emperor Charles VI., accompanied with his portrait, set round with large diamonds, as a mark of his grateful sense of his services. It was entirely owing to his advice and assistance that the Germans retook the city of Messina in 1719, and destroyed the ships which lay in the basin; an achievement which completed the ruin of the naval power of Spain. The Spaniards being much distressed, offered to quit Sicily; but the admiral declared that the troops should never be suffered to depart from the island till the king of Spain had acceded to the quadruple alliance. And to his conduct it was entirely owing that Sicily was subdued, and his Catholic Majesty forced to accept the terms prescribed him by the quadruple alliance.

After performing so many signal services, he was received by the king with the most gracious expressions of favour and satisfaction; and made rear-admiral of England and treasurer of the navy, a member of the privy-council, Baron Byng of Southill, in the county of Bedford, Viscount Torrington in Devonshire, and one of the knights companions of the bath upon the revival of that order. In 1727 George II., on his accession to the crown, placed him at the head of naval affairs, as first lord of the admiralty. He died January 15, 1733, in the seventieth year of his age, and was buried at Southill, in Bedfordshire. For the trial and judicial murder of his son, the Hon. John Byng, see Britain.