John Fox Burgoyne

Lieutenant General Sir John Fox Burgoyne, GCB , photo by Roger Fenton , 1855

Sir John Fox Burgoyne, 1st Baronet GCB (born July 24, 1782 in London , † October 7, 1871 in Kensington ) was a British field marshal .

Life

John Fox Burgoyne was the son of General John Burgoyne was born and entered 1798 as a second lieutenant (Secondeleutnant) into the Corps of Engineers of the British Army one. He took part in the fighting against Napoléon Bonaparte and from 1809 took part in the campaigns on the Pyrenees Peninsula under the Duke of Wellington . Wellington put him in charge of the siege operations in front of Burgos and later in front of San Sebastián . He also fought in America and was involved in the unsuccessful attacks against New Orleans as aLieutenant colonel and chief of the engineering corps involved (January 8, 1815).

After Burgoyne had accompanied the army under General Clinton to Portugal in 1826 , he was appointed Colonel Director of Buildings and Public Works in Ireland in 1831 . In 1838 he rose to major general and since 1845 was responsible for the general inspection of the country's fortifications. Through his now famous memoir , he initiated the fortification of the British coasts.

During Ireland's famine from 1846 to 1847, Burgoyne led efforts to alleviate the misery. In 1851 he was promoted to lieutenant general . Before the outbreak of the Crimean War , he went to Constantinople to secure the fortification of the Turkish capital and the Dardanelles . During the operations against Sevastopol , he ordered the bombardment of the Malakov fortress . He returned to England in 1855 and was promoted to Baronet of the Army in 1856 . In 1865 he was made Commander of the Tower of London and in 1868 Field Marshal .

At the age of 89, John Fox Burgoyne died in London on October 7, 1871, and found his final resting place in Brompton Cemetery ( Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea ). Since his only son Hugh had died childless in 1870, his title of nobility expired on his death.

Works

• Military opinions . London (1859)
• Treatise on the blasting and quarring of Stone . London 1852.

literature

• Tony A. Heathcote: The British Field Marshals 1736-1997 . Cooper Press, London 1999, ISBN 0-85052-696-5 .
• George Wrottesley: Life and correspondence of Field Marshal Sir John Burgoyne . Bentley Press, London 1880 (2 vols.).