Captain Haddock Hergé thought this was a perfect name for Tintin’s new mariner friend, and so Captain Haddock was born. There was a real 20th-century ship's master bearing this unlikely but appropriate surname: Captain Herbert Haddock had been the skipper of the famous White Star Line's passenger vessel "Olympic". He had also been temporarily at the helm of Olympic's even more famous sister ship "Titanic" before "Titanic" was officially handed over to White Star for her doomed 1912 maiden voyage. Another famous namesake, and a possible inspiration for the Captain's ancestor Sir Francis, was the English admiral Richard Haddock, a veteran of
Richard Haddock 1656 to 1660, but was then unemployed until 1666 when he took command of the 50-gun on 14 June 1666. During this period, he was given command of one of the companies involved in the attacks on Ulie and Schelling in August 1666. He relinquished command of the "Portland" on 9 November 1667. Prior to the outbreak of the Third Anglo-Dutch War in 1672 Haddock became captain of the 100-gun on 18 January of that year; he was her captain at the Battle of Solebay on 28 May. The "Royal James" was the flagship of Admiral Sir Edward Montagu, 1st