John Cradock, 1st Baron Howden
Encyclopedia
General
General (United Kingdom)
General is currently the highest peace-time rank in the British Army and Royal Marines. It is subordinate to the Army rank of Field Marshal, has a NATO-code of OF-9, and is a four-star rank....

 John Francis Cradock, 1st Baron Howden GCB
Order of the Bath
The Most Honourable Order of the Bath is a British order of chivalry founded by George I on 18 May 1725. The name derives from the elaborate mediæval ceremony for creating a knight, which involved bathing as one of its elements. The knights so created were known as Knights of the Bath...

 (11 August 1759 – 26 July 1839) was a British
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 peer
Peerage
The Peerage is a legal system of largely hereditary titles in the United Kingdom, which constitute the ranks of British nobility and is part of the British honours system...

, politician and soldier
Soldier
A soldier is a member of the land component of national armed forces; whereas a soldier hired for service in a foreign army would be termed a mercenary...

.

Life

He was son of John Cradock
John Cradock
John Cradock was an English churchman, Church of Ireland Archbishop of Dublin from 1772.-Background and education:...

, Church of Ireland Archbishop of Dublin.

In 1777, he was appointed a Cornet in the 4th Regiment of Horse, which in 1779 he exchanged to become an Ensign in the Coldstream Guards
Coldstream Guards
Her Majesty's Coldstream Regiment of Foot Guards, also known officially as the Coldstream Guards , is a regiment of the British Army, part of the Guards Division or Household Division....

, and in 1781 he was promoted a Lieutenant with the rank of Captain. In 1785 he purchased a commission as a Major in the 12th Dragoons
12th Royal Lancers
The 12th Royal Lancers was a cavalry regiment of the British Army. In 1960, it was amalgamated with 9th Queen's Royal Lancers, to form 9th/12th Royal Lancers .-History:...

, exchanging this in 1786 for a post in the 13th Foot, where he was appointed Lieutenant-Colonel in 1789.

He commanded the 13th in the West Indies in 1790, and served a second time in the West Indies commanding a battalion of grenadiers in 1793, where he was wounded at the reduction of Martinique and appointed the aide-de-camp of Sir Charles Grey
Charles Grey, 1st Earl Grey
Charles Grey, 1st Earl Grey, KB PC was one of the most important British generals of the 18th century. He was the fourth son of Sir Henry Grey, 1st Baronet, of Howick in Northumberland. He served in the Seven Years' War, American War of Independence and French Revolutionary War...

, receiving the thanks of Parliament for his services.

In 1795 he was appointed Colonel of the 127th Foot
127th Regiment of Foot
The 127th Regiment of Foot was an infantry regiment of the British Army, created in 1794 and disbanded in 1796.It was raised under the colonelcy of General John Caradoc, 1st Baron Howden.-References:*, regiments.org...

, and placed on half-pay when that regiment was reduced in 1797. He was appointed Major-General in 1798, and served in the Irish Rebellion of 1798
Irish Rebellion of 1798
The Irish Rebellion of 1798 , also known as the United Irishmen Rebellion , was an uprising in 1798, lasting several months, against British rule in Ireland...

 as Quartermaster-General in Ireland, seeing action the Battle of Vinegar Hill
Battle of Vinegar Hill
The Battle of Vinegar Hill was an engagement during the Irish Rebellion of 1798 on 21 June 1798 when over 15,000 British soldiers launched an attack on Vinegar Hill outside Enniscorthy, County Wexford, the largest camp and headquarters of the Wexford United Irish rebels...

. He accompanied Cornwallis in his campaign against the French forces landed in Ireland, and was severely wounded at the Battle of Ballinamuck
Battle of Ballinamuck
The Battle of Ballinamuck marked the defeat of the main force of the French incursion during the 1798 Rebellion in Ireland.- Background :The victory of General Humbert at Castlebar, despite gaining him c. 5,000 Irish recruits had not led to a renewed outbreak of the rebellion as hoped...

.

Cradock entered the Irish House of Commons
Irish House of Commons
The Irish House of Commons was the lower house of the Parliament of Ireland, that existed from 1297 until 1800. The upper house was the House of Lords...

 for Clogher
Clogher (Parliament of Ireland constituency)
Clogher was a borough constituency in the Irish House of Commons until 1800. It represented the "city" of Clogher in County Tyrone. The city, actually no more than a village, gained its importance as the site of the cathedral of the Church of Ireland diocese of Clogher. The constituency was a...

 in 1785. In 1790, he stood as Member of Parliament
Member of Parliament
A Member of Parliament is a representative of the voters to a :parliament. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, the term applies specifically to members of the lower house, as upper houses often have a different title, such as senate, and thus also have different titles for its members,...

 for Castlebar
Castlebar (Parliament of Ireland constituency)
Castlebar was a constituency represented in the Irish House of Commons from 1614 to 1800. The area is in County Mayo. Between 1725 and 1793 Catholics and those married to Catholics could not vote.-History:...

, a seat he held until 1798. He then represented Midleton
Midleton (Parliament of Ireland constituency)
Midleton was a constituency represented in the Irish House of Commons until 1800. Incorporated by Charter, 1671 whereby it was granted to Sir John Brodrick with a Corporation sovereign, two bailiffs and 12 burgesses. It was disenfranchised at the Act of Union and compensation of £15,000 paid to...

 from 1799 to 1800 and subsequently Thomastown
Thomastown (Parliament of Ireland constituency)
Thomastown was a constituency represented in the Irish House of Commons until 1800. Following the Act of Union 1800 the borough was disfranchised.-1692–1801:-See also:*Thomastown, a town in County Kilkenny*Irish House of Commons...

 to the Act of Union in 1801. In the year before, he was appointed to command the second battalion of the 54th Foot, and again placed on half-pay when that battalion was reduced in 1802. In 1803 he was appointed to the 71st Foot, and from there moved to the command of the 23rd Light Infantry in January 1809.

In 1801 he was on the staff in the Mediterranean under Sir Ralph Abercromby
Ralph Abercromby
Sir Ralph Abercromby was a Scottish soldier and politician. He rose to the rank of lieutenant-general in the British Army, was noted for his services during the Napoleonic Wars, and served as Commander-in-Chief, Ireland.He twice served as MP for Clackmannanshire and Kinross-shire, and was...

, seeing action several times and serving as second-in-command of a division in the field. After the surrender of Cairo and Alexandria, at which he was present, he was despatched with a force to occupy Corsica and Naples, but was recalled en route after the Peace of Amiens was signed.

He was then appointed Commander-in-Chief of the forces of the British East India Company
British East India Company
The East India Company was an early English joint-stock company that was formed initially for pursuing trade with the East Indies, but that ended up trading mainly with the Indian subcontinent and China...

 at Madras; after the departure of Lord Lake, he commanded the whole of the forces in the peninsula for almost a year. In 1808 he was appointed to command the forces in Portugal, handing over command to Arthur Wellesley
Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington
Field Marshal Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington, KG, GCB, GCH, PC, FRS , was an Irish-born British soldier and statesman, and one of the leading military and political figures of the 19th century...

 later in the year, and briefly serving as the Governor of Gibraltar
Governor of Gibraltar
The Governor and Commander-in-Chief of Gibraltar is the representative of the British monarch in the British overseas territory of Gibraltar. The Governor is appointed by the British Monarch on the advice of the British Government...

.

In 1811 he was appointed Governor of the Cape Colony
Cape Colony
The Cape Colony, part of modern South Africa, was established by the Dutch East India Company in 1652, with the founding of Cape Town. It was subsequently occupied by the British in 1795 when the Netherlands were occupied by revolutionary France, so that the French revolutionaries could not take...

 and commander of the forces on that station, resigning in 1814 and being succeeded by Lord Charles Somerset
Lord Charles Somerset
General Lord Charles Henry Somerset PC was a British soldier, politician and colonial administrator. He was governor of the Cape Colony, South Africa, from 1814 to 1826.-Background:...

. He was elevated to the Peerage of Ireland
Peerage of Ireland
The Peerage of Ireland is the term used for those titles of nobility created by the English and later British monarchs of Ireland in their capacity as Lord or King of Ireland. The creation of such titles came to an end in the 19th century. The ranks of the Irish peerage are Duke, Marquess, Earl,...

 as Baron Howden in 1819, and to the Peerage of the United Kingdom
Peerage of the United Kingdom
The Peerage of the United Kingdom comprises most peerages created in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland after the Act of Union in 1801, when it replaced the Peerage of Great Britain...

under the same title in 1831.

The town of Cradock in the Eastern Cape, South Africa, is named after him.
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