Frederick Maitland

General Frederick Maitland (3 September 1763 – 27 January 1848) was a British Army officer who fought during the American War of Independence, the Peninsular War and later served as Lieutenant Governor of Dominica.

Life

The youngest son of the hon. Sir Alexander Maitland and Penelope, daughter of Martin Madan (MP) and Judith Madan the poet, he was also the grandson of Charles Maitland, 6th Earl of Lauderdale and a first cousin of Rear Admiral Frederick Lewis Maitland (1779–1837).

In 1779 the age of 16 Maitland joined the 14th regiment, serving as a Marine on HMS Union at the Great Siege of Gibraltar in 1781. Maitland subsequently served in the West Indies on the staff of the quarter master-general, General Cuyler. He was promoted from Ensign to Brevet Major and also served as aide-de-camp to Sir Charles Grey, at the relief of Nieuport on the Dutch coast in 1793.

Maitland was engaged in two naval actions during this period; the first in 1793 involving the sloop Fairy (18 guns, commanded by Captain later Admiral John Laforey), in which Maitland commanded the Marines, in an engagement with a French 32-gun frigate, which escaped. The second involved the frigate Arethusa (38 guns, commanded by Captain Woolley), where Maitland commanded the cabin guns of the frigate at the capture of the French corvette, La Gaieté in 1797.

In 1796 Maitland was appointed secretary to General Sir Ralph Abercromby and travelled with him to the West Indies.

As a Colonel, Maitland was appointed quartermaster general in the West Indies in 1800. He commanded a brigade at the capture of St Bartholemew, St Thomas, St Martin and Santa Cruz in 1801. He was also second in command at the taking of Surinam in 1804. In 1805 Maitland was appointed Governor of Grenada at the express command of George III. In 1807 he saw further action during the recapture of St Thomas and Santa Cruz which had been returned after the Treaty of Amiens in 1802. Coincidentally Maitland received the surrender of St Thomas from Van Schogen, the same Dutch Governor he had captured it of in 1801. In 1809 he commanded a brigade during the Invasion of Martinique.

During the Peninsular War, in 1811 Maitland was appointed second in command of the Army in Sicily under Lord William Bentinck. The following year he led a diversionary army of 6,550 men to the East Coast of Spain where General Louis Gabriel Suchet held Barcelona, Tarragona and Valencia with 28,000 men. His forces landed at Alicante, but Maitland, his health apparently impaired after many years service in the Indies, fell ill and returned to England.

In recognition of his services Maitland was appointed Lieutenant Governor of Dominica.

He married Catherine, daughter of John Prettyjohn of Barbados. They had nine children, but only three survived him. These were Harriet MacLean (b. 1801 d. 1850), Colonel Frederick Thomas Maitland (b. 1807 d. 1882) and Charlotte Garth (b. 1799 d. 1868), who married Captain Thomas Garth RN of Haines Hill in Berkshire.

Maitland died at Tunbridge Wells on 27 January 1848.

References

• The Gentlemans Magazine 1848 Page 437