William Cavendish-Bentinck

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Lord William Bentinck

Lord William Henry Cavendish-Bentinck GCB , GCH , PC (born September 14, 1774 in Bulstrode , Buckinghamshire , † June 17, 1839 in Paris ) British general and statesman.

Life

William was the second son of Prime Minister William Bentinck, 3rd Duke of Portland (1738-1809) from his marriage to Lady Dorothy Cavendish. In 1801 his father added the family name from Bentinck to Cavendish -Bentinck .

After serving as an officer in various units of the British Army from 1791 , he became governor of Madras in 1803 . In 1805 he was raised to the rank of major general and in 1807, after the mutiny in Vellore, recalled from Madras.

He fought in the Napoleonic Wars on the Iberian Peninsula , was promoted to Brevet - Lieutenant General in 1811 and commander of the British troops in the Kingdom of Sicily . The then king of Naples and Sicily, Ferdinand , had to retreat to the island of Sicily after his kingdom of Naples was occupied by the French in 1806. Bentinck contributed significantly to the fact that King Ferdinand abdicated under pressure from the British government in 1812 in favor of his son Franz and Queen Maria Karolina was expelled from the country. Giving the island a liberal constitution and a parliament based on the British model ultimately failed. In 1813 he landed in Catalonia , but had to lift the siege of Barcelona and embark again after the unfortunate battle of Villafranca . In 1814 he landed in Naples as commander in chief of the British troops in the Mediterranean , where he persuaded Joachim Murat to form an alliance against his brother-in-law Napoleon . He then landed at Livorno in March 1814 and took Genoa in April and subsequently tried unsuccessfully to restore the Republic of Genoa and the Anglo-Corsican kingdom . Due to his arbitrariness he came under criticism of the British Prime Minister Lord Liverpool and was finally recalled in April 1815 as Commander in Chief.

He was MP in the British House of Commons on several occasions , from 1812 to 1814 and from 1816 to 1826 as Knight of the Shire for Nottinghamshire , from 1826 to 1828 as Burgess for King's Lynn and 1836 to 1839 as Burgess for Glasgow . In 1813 he was made the Knight Companion of the Order of the Bath , in 1815 the Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath and in 1817 the Knight Grand Cross of the Royal Guelphic Order .

In 1827 he became Governor General of the East Indies . Here he implemented some educational and social reforms, for example banning the burning of widows and flogging as a disciplinary punishment for the Indian army. Recalled under Prime Minister Lord Melbourne in 1835, he went to Paris , where he died on June 17, 1839.

Cavendish-Bentinck married Lady Mary in 1803, daughter of Arthur Acheson, 1st Earl of Gosford . The marriage remained childless.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Lord William Cavendish-Bentinck in Hansard (English)
  2. ^ William Arthur Shaw: The Knights of England. Volume 1, Sherratt and Hughes, London 1906, p. 178.
  3. ^ William Arthur Shaw: The Knights of England. Volume 1, Sherratt and Hughes, London 1906, p. 181.
  4. ^ William Arthur Shaw: The Knights of England. Volume 1, Sherratt and Hughes, London 1906, p. 448.

Web links

predecessor Office successor
William Butterworth Bayley Governor General of (East) India
1828–1835 		Charles Metcalfe
personal data
SURNAME Cavendish-Bentinck, William
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Cavendish-Bentinck, William Henry; Bentinck, William
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British general and statesman
DATE OF BIRTH September 14, 1774
PLACE OF BIRTH Bulstrode , Buckinghamshire
DATE OF DEATH June 17, 1839
Place of death Paris