British Army general
General
Sir Harry Burrard, 1st Baronet
(1 June 1755 ? 17 October 1813) was a British soldier who fought in the
American War of Independence
, the
French Revolutionary Wars
and in the
Peninsular War
.
Biography
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Burrard was born at
Walhampton
on 1 June 1755, the elder son of George Burrard of Walhampton, Hampshire, who was the third son of
Paul Burrard
, M.P. for
Lymington
from 1706 to 1736, and younger brother of
Sir Harry Burrard
, M.P. for Lymington from 1741 to 1784 and created a baronet in 1769.
Burrard became an ensign in the
Coldstream Guards
in 1772. He was promoted lieutenant and captain in 1773, and in 1777 exchanged into the
60th Foot
, in order to see service in the
American War of Independence
. With his regiment he served under Sir
William Howe
in 1778 and 1779
?He was captured during a
raid on the Bruges canal
in 1798. He led the 2nd Brigade during the 1799
Anglo-Russian invasion of Holland
, fighting at the battles of
Bergen
,
Egmont
and
Castricum
.
[
citation needed
]
In 1780 returned to England on being elected M.P. for
Lymington
through the influence of his uncle Sir Harry. He served under
Lord Cornwallis
in America in 1781 and 1782.
After
peace had been declared
he returned to the guards in 1786 as lieutenant and captain in the grenadier guards, and was promoted captain and lieutenant-colonel in 1789. With the guards he served in Flanders from 1793 to 1795, and was promoted colonel in 1795, and major-general in 1798. In 1804 he became lieutenant-colonel commanding the
1st Foot Guards
, and in 1805 he was promoted lieutenant-general.
In 1807 he received his first command in the
expedition to Copenhagen
under
Lord Cathcart
, when he commanded the 1st Division, and as senior general under Cathcart acted as second in command. He had very little to do in the expedition; yet on his return he was created a baronet, and also made governor of Calshot Castle.
In 1808 he was selected to supersede Sir
Arthur Wellesley
. He arrived on the coast of Portugal on 19 August, and wisely decided not to interfere with Sir Arthur Wellesley's arrangements. On 21 August
Junot
attacked Sir Arthur's position at
Vimeiro
, and was successfully beaten off, and the English general had just ordered
Ferguson
to pursue the beaten enemy, when Burrard assumed the chief command, and, believing the French had a reserve as yet untouched, forbade Ferguson to advance. The very next day
Sir Hew Dalrymple
assumed the chief command, and made the
Convention of Cintra
, with the full concurrence of Burrard, while Wellesley was ordered to do so due to his opposition to the convention. All three generals were recalled, and a court of inquiry was appointed to examine their conduct. Burrard succinctly declared the reasons for his course of action on 21 August. While the inquiry officially absolved all three, unofficially the blame fell on Burrard and Dalrymple. Wellesley soon returned to active duty in Portugal, while Burrard and Dalrymple were pushed into a series of obscure administrative posts and never again held an active command.
Burrard never applied for another command, but in 1810 as senior lieutenant-colonel he assumed the command of the Brigade of Guards in London.
He died at
Calshot Castle
near Fawley, Hampshire, on 17 October 1813. He was buried in Lymington churchyard.
He was succeeded by his eldest surviving son,
Charles
(1793?1870), an officer who rose to the rank of admiral in the
Royal Navy
and on whose death in 1870 the baronetcy became extinct.
Family
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On 20 February 1789 he married Hannah, the daughter of Harry Darby, a London merchant; they had five sons and two daughters.
All the sons served in the army or the navy. Two sons were killed in 1809 one of whom was acting as
aide-de-camp
to Sir
John Moore
at the
Battle of Corunna
. He lost a third at the
siege of San Sebastian
, which is said to have caused him to die of a broken heart. His wife survived him.
In fiction
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]
He appears in
Naomi Novik
's fifth
Temeraire
novel,
Victory of Eagles
, and in
Dewey Lambdin
's novel
Kings and Emperors
, book 21 of the
Alan Lewrie
series.
Notes
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References
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]
- Attribution
- This article incorporates text from a publication now in the
public domain
:
Stephens, Henry Morse (1886). "
Burrard, Harry
". In
Stephen, Leslie
(ed.).
Dictionary of National Biography
. Vol. 7. London: Smith, Elder & Co. p. 440.
Endnotes
- Wellington Despatches, vol. iii.;
- Napier's History of the Peninsular War, vol. i. book ii.;
- Memorial written by Sir Hew Dalrymple. Bart., of his proceedings as connected with the affairs of Spain, and the commencement of the Peninsular War, 1830;
- The Whole Proceedings of the Court of Inquiry upon the conduct of Sir Hew Dalrymple relative to the Convention of Cintra, held in the Great Hall, Chelsea College, from Monday, 14 Nov., to Wednesday, 14 Dec. 1808.
Further reading
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