Willoughby Cotton

Lieutenant General Sir Willoughby Cotton (1783 – 4 May 1860) was an English soldier in the British Army. Family Willoughby Cotton was born in 1783, to Vice-Admiral Rowland Cotton and Elizabeth Aston. They also had a daughter, Sydney Arabella Cotton. Rowland Cotton was from a well-established Chester family, was the second son of Sir Lynch Cotton, 4th Baronet, while Elizabeth was the eldest daughter of Sir Willoughby Aston, 5th Baronet Aston, of Aston, Chester. Cotton married Lady Augusta Maria Coventry on 16 May 1806 in Marylebone, London. They had three children together, Augusta Mary Cotton, Willoughby Cotton and Maj.-Gen. Corbet Cotton. School years Willoughby Cotton entered Rugby School at the age of 12 in 1795. Cotton, aged 14, was a ringleader in the "Great Rebellion" of November 1797. Aggrieved by the attitude of the Head Master, Dr. Henry Ingles (1794–1806), following the breaking of a window, students blew his classroom door off with gunpowder and followed this by burning desks and books upon the close, before retreating to the Island (a Bronze Age burial mound surrounded by a moat). Ingles called in the local militia, whereupon the Riot Act was read and the Island taken. Soldiers stole round to the rear, and wading across the moat, drawn sword in hand, took the whole party prisoner. Cotton was among the students to be expelled as a result of this confrontation.