Charles Colville

General Sir Charles Colville (7 August 1770 – 27 March 1843) was a British Army officer who served during the Napoleonic Wars. He was an ensign in 1781. He served in the West Indies from 1791 to 1797 and while serving there was promoted to lieutenant-colonel (1796). He helped to suppress the Irish Rebellion of 1798. He was in Egypt in 1801 and fought at Martinique in 1809. He commanded brigade, and afterwards division, in the Peninsular War from 1810 until 1814. During the Waterloo Campaign of 1815 he commanded a division in Belgium and the same year was made a K.C.B. In 1819 he was promoted to lieutenant-general and served as commander-in-chief at Bombay from 1819 until 1825. He was governor of Mauritius from 1828 until 1834. He was promoted to general in 1837. Biography Charles Colville was the third son of John Colville, 8th Lord Colville of Culross and Amelia Webber, in the peerage of Scotland, was born on 7 August 1770. In 1818 Colville married Jane Mure 27 May 1843), eldest daughter of William Mure of Caldwell. He had two sons, Charles John (23 Nov 1818 – 1 Jul 1903) and William James (9 Mar 1827 – 16 Oct 1903; in 1850 a lieutenant in the Rifle Brigade—the 95th), and two daughters, Catherine Dorothea (d. 26 Feb 1904) and Georgina Clementina (d. 18 Mar 1871). Upon the death of his elder brother, Admiral John Colville, 9th Lord Colville of Culross, in 1849 (without heirs), the title devolved to his first son, Charles, and the honors to all his children. His eldest son was, in 1850, a major in the artillery. Military service Colville entered the army as an ensign in the 28th regiment on 26 December 1781, but did not join until 1787, in which year he was promoted lieutenant. In May 1791 he was promoted captain into the 13th Somersetshire Light Infantry, with which he remained for nineteen years, until he became a major-general. He joined it in December 1791 in the West Indies, and remained with it until its return to England in 1797, seeing much service in the interval, especially in San Domingo, and being promoted major 1 September 1795 and to lieutenant-colonel 26 August 1796. Colville commanded the 13th in the suppression of the Irish Rebellion of 1798, and in the expeditions to Ferrol and Egypt. In Egypt, his regiment formed part of Major-General John Cradock's brigade, and distinguished itself in the battles of Abukir, Mandora, and Canope, and in the subsequent investment of the French garrison at Alexandria.