Lieutenant-General Sir Thomas Maitland, 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...

, GCH

Royal Guelphic Order

The Royal Guelphic Order, sometimes also referred to as the Hanoverian Guelphic Order, is a Hanoverian order of chivalry instituted on 28 April 1815 by the Prince Regent . It has not been conferred by the British Crown since the death of King William IV in 1837, when the personal union of the...

 (1759–1824) 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...

 soldier and colonial governor. He also served as a Member of Parliament for Haddington from 1790–96, 1802–06 and 1812–13. He was made a Privy Councillor

Privy Council of the United Kingdom

Her Majesty's Most Honourable Privy Council, usually known simply as the Privy Council, is a formal body of advisers to the Sovereign in the United Kingdom...

 on 23 November 1803. He was the third son of James Maitland, 7th Earl of Lauderdale

James Maitland, 7th Earl of Lauderdale

James Maitland, 7th Earl of Lauderdale , and was one of the sixteen representative peers for Scotland in the House of Lords....

 and younger brother of James Maitland, 8th Earl of Lauderdale

James Maitland, 8th Earl of Lauderdale

James Maitland, 8th Earl of Lauderdale KT PC was Keeper of the Great Seal of Scotland, and a representative peer for Scotland in the House of Lords.-Early years:...

.

Military service

Maitland was commissioned into the Edinburgh Light Horse, shortly after his birth, but did not take up his commission until he joined the 78th Foot as a Captain

Captain (British Army and Royal Marines)

Captain is a junior officer rank of the British Army and Royal Marines. It ranks above Lieutenant and below Major and has a NATO ranking code of OF-2. The rank is equivalent to a Lieutenant in the Royal Navy and to a Flight Lieutenant in the Royal Air Force...

 in 1778. He transferred to the 72nd Foot, and then to the 62nd Foot as a Major

Major

Major is a rank of commissioned officer, with corresponding ranks existing in almost every military in the world.When used unhyphenated, in conjunction with no other indicator of rank, the term refers to the rank just senior to that of an Army captain and just below the rank of lieutenant colonel. ...

 in 1790. He was promoted Lieutenant-Colonel in 1794 and Colonel

Colonel

Colonel , abbreviated Col or COL, is a military rank of a senior commissioned officer. It or a corresponding rank exists in most armies and in many air forces; the naval equivalent rank is generally "Captain". It is also used in some police forces and other paramilitary rank structures...

 and Brigadier-General in 1798.

Love story at Ceylon

Whilst he was assigned to Ceylon (Sri Lanka

Sri Lanka

Sri Lanka, officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka is a country off the southern coast of the Indian subcontinent. Known until 1972 as Ceylon , Sri Lanka is an island surrounded by the Indian Ocean, the Gulf of Mannar and the Palk Strait, and lies in the vicinity of India and the...

) as the governor during the period of 1805–1811, Maitland was attracted to a place at "Galkissa" (Mount Lavinia

Dehiwala-Mount Lavinia

Dehiwala-Mount Lavinia Is a newly created city lying immediately south of Colombo, one of the largest cities in Sri Lanka. It is the result of certain key urban suburbs and communities combined for administrative purposes. The centres include Dehiwala and the beach resort of Mount Lavinia....

) and decided to construct his palace there.

During this time, Maitland fell in love with a half-caste dancing girl named Lovina who had been born to Portuguese

Portuguese people

The Portuguese are a nation and ethnic group native to the country of Portugal, in the west of the Iberian peninsula of south-west Europe. Their language is Portuguese, and Roman Catholicism is the predominant religion....

 and Sinhalese parents. During the construction, the governor gave instructions for the construction of a secret tunnel to Lovina's house which was located close to the governor's palace. One end of the tunnel was inside the well of Lovina's house and the other end was in a wine cellar inside the governor's palace. When the governor came to reside there, he would often use the tunnel to meet Lovina.

Maitland left Ceylon in 1811 and transferred to Malta

Malta

Malta , officially known as the Republic of Malta , is a Southern European country consisting of an archipelago situated in the centre of the Mediterranean, south of Sicily, east of Tunisia and north of Libya, with Gibraltar to the west and Alexandria to the east.Malta covers just over in...

, where he lived and died as a bachelor. There he was known as "King Tom" by the Maltese. He also served as governor of Corfu

Corfu

Corfu is a Greek island in the Ionian Sea. It is the second largest of the Ionian Islands, and, including its small satellite islands, forms the edge of the northwestern frontier of Greece. The island is part of the Corfu regional unit, and is administered as a single municipality. The...

 during the British administration of the island.

After some time in 1920, the tunnel was sealed up and the Sinhalese village that surrounded the Governor’s mansion developed into a modern city. Later the city of "Galkissa" was renamed "Mount Lavinia" in honour of Lovina.

The bicentenary celebration of the Mount Lavinia Hotel was held in 2005. Some of Sir Thomas Maitland's relatives living in the UK attended the ceremony.

Further reading

• Dixon, Cyril Willis (1939) The Colonial Administrations of Sir Thomas Maitland Longmans, Green and Company, London, OCLC 2888724; reprinted in 1968 by Cass, London, OCLC 461019
• Hulugalle, H. A. J. (1963) "Sir Thomas Maitland (1805-1811)" British Governors of Ceylon Associated Newspapers of Ceylon, Colombo, Sri Lanka, pages 18–25, OCLC 4175720

External links

• worldstatesmen.org
• regiments.org
• The Louverture Project: Thomas Maitland - Thomas Maitland and the Haitian Revolution.

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