| Sir George Nugent | |
|---|---|
| Born | 10 June 1757 |
| Died | 11 March 1849 (aged 91) |
| Allegiance | United Kingdom |
| Service/branch | British Army |
| Rank | Field Marshal |
| Commands held | Indian Army |
| Battles/wars | American Revolutionary War |
| Awards | Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath |
Field Marshal Sir George Nugent, 1st Baronet, GCB (10 June 1757 – 11 March 1849) was a British soldier.
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George Nugent was the eldest son of Lieutenant Colonel the Hon. Edmund Nugent, only son of Robert Nugent, 1st Earl Nugent.[1] He was educated at Charterhouse School and the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich.[1] On Edmund's death in 1771, his marriage was found to have been illegal and he and his brother Charles were declared illegitimate, and therefore ineligible to succeed to his grandfather's titles.
In 1773 George entered the British Army as an Ensign in the 39th Regiment of Foot,[1] stationed at Gibraltar. In September 1777 he joined the 7th Regiment of Foot (Royal Fusiliers) at New York,[1] and saw action in the American Revolutionary War.[1] In April 1778 he became a Captain in the 57th Regiment of Foot,[1] and in May 1782 a Major in the same regiment.[1] In 1783 he was promoted to Lieutenant Colonel of the 97th Regiment of Foot[1] and returned to England, where he also served with the 13th (1st Somersetshire) Regiment of Foot.[1] From 1787 to 1790 he served as an aide-de-camp to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, his brother-in-law the Marquess of Buckingham.[1] Through Lord Buckingham's influence he was appointed Lieutenant Colonel of the 4th (Royal Irish) Dragoon Guards.[1] He exchanged into the Coldstream Guards the following year,[1] serving with the Duke of York in the Netherlands in 1793. In January 1794, the War Office recalled him to supervise the raising of a regiment at the instigation of the Marquess of Buckingham. Sir George was Colonel of the regiment, the Bucks Volunteers, later the 85th (Bucks Volunteers) Regiment of Foot,[1] for about a year, until he was promoted to Brigadier General in 1795. While he commanded the regiment it served under Sir Ralph Abercrombie in the actions of St. Andria and Thuyl on the river Waal, and participated in the disastrous retreat from the Rhine.[2] In 1796, he was promoted to Major General, again at the instigation of Lord Buckingham.
Also in 1796, Sir George was elected Member of Parliament for Buckingham and represented the constituency until 1802. He distinguished himself for his rôle in placating Belfast during the Irish Rebellion of 1798, and from July 1799 to March 1801 he was Adjutant-General in Ireland, also representing Charleville in the last Irish House of Commons before the Act of Union 1800.[1]
In 1801 Sir George was appointed Governor of Jamaica, serving until February 1806;[1] his old regiment the 85th were also stationed in Jamaica at this time. While there, he strengthened the fort that the Spanish slave agent in Jamaica, James Castillo, had built in 1709 in Harbour View. Named Fort Nugent, the fort guarded the eastern entrance of the city of Kingston Harbour, but all that remains is a Martello tower that was added after Sir George's departure.[3]
Returning to England, he was made Colonel of the 6th (1st Warwickshire) Regiment of Foot on 26 May 1806, elected Member of Parliament (MP) for Aylesbury on 3 November and created a baronet, of Waddesdon in the county of Buckinghamshire, on 28 November.
In October 1808 he bought Westhorpe House in Buckinghamshire, and resided there with his family until his appointment as Commander-in-Chief, India on the 14 January 1811.[1] On his return in 1813 he was promoted to full General.[1] In 1815 he was made a Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath, and in 1819 an honorary DCL of the University of Oxford. From 1819 to 1832 he was again MP for Buckingham. He was made a Field Marshal in 1846,[1] and died at Westhorpe in 1849. His eldest son, George Edmund, succeeded him in the baronetcy.
General Nugent married Maria Skinner, Daughter of Cortlandt Skinner, the Attorney-General of New Jersey, in Belfast on 16 November 1797.[1] The couple had three sons and two daughters.[4] Lady Nugent wrote a journal of her experiences in Jamaica first published in 1907. The current edition is: Wright, Philip (2002). Lady Nugent's Journal of Her Residence in Jamaica from 1801 to 1805. University of the West Indies Press. The journal describes the day to day life of a governor's wife and the social and political requirements of their station on the island.
Lady Nugent also kept a journal of her time in India, which was published privately by the Nugent family along with her Jamaica journal in 1839, but which, unlike her Jamaica journal, has not yet ever been republished. A critical edition of Lady Nugent's India Journal is currently being prepared.[5]