British Army Officer Promotions 1800-1815
Discover your ancestors who served in Wellington’s army and whose promotions were announced in the London Gazette between 1800 and 1815. The records may reveal details of your relative’s military career such as unit or regiment, status, promoted rank and promotion date. Included in these records are those of Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington, who led the allied army to victory against Napoleon at the Battle of Waterloo and who is considered one of the greatest defensive commanders of all time.
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Discover your ancestors who served in Wellington’s army and whose promotions were announced in the London Gazette between 1800 and 1815. The records may reveal details of your relative’s military career such as unit or regiment, status, promoted rank and promotion date. Included in these records are those of Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington, who led the allied army to victory against Napoleon at the Battle of Waterloo and who is considered one of the greatest defensive commanders of all time.
Each record comprises a transcript of the promotion which was originally announced in The London Gazette. The amount of information varies, but the records usually include a combination of the following information about your ancestor:
- First name(s)
- Last name
- Rank
- Unit or regiment
- Status
- Promoted rank
- Promotion year
- Promotion date
- Departmental date
- Announcement year
- Announcement date
- Replacing vice
- Notes
- Page
- Issue number
The record set comprises 24,678 records.
These are records about Wellington’s officers who went on to defeat Napoleon in 1815. The records were collected by an independent researcher in order to present a full picture of promotions in Wellington’s army during this very active period of British military history.
The London Gazette is the source of these officer promotions.
As well as the regular army, officer promotions are given in the different militias (including the Fencible units) and cover England, Scotland and Wales. There are references to the militias in Ireland, but the London Gazette does not provide comprehensive lists. There are also a number of foreign units, in particular the King’s German Legion. Units which were serving overseas are also noted, the most numerous of which are the West India Regiments.
As the list indicates, these are officer promotions from ensign (for infantry) or cornet (for cavalry) upwards. In addition, a range of other positions is included; for example surgeons, assistant-surgeons, adjutants and - for the militias – chaplains.
On average there are approximately 10,000 entries a year, but the number can vary greatly. In 1802 there were a little over 2,000 entries but in 1803 there were more than 26,000 commissions due to the heightened invasion threat from Napoleon.
In addition to the date of the particular issue of the London Gazette, there are internal departmental dates. The most numerous dates are the War Office dates which tend to run several days ahead of the date of the particular issue. This date is generic and covers all the regular units. Local militias usually have their own dates, most of which are associated with individual promotions.
Occasionally the date associated with a militia promotion gives a promotion which occurred many years in the past. The militia entries are normally signed by the Lord Lieutenant of the relevant county which can help to identify where a militia is, especially if the militia has been formed in a small village.
Two types of entries are outside the normal format: Memorandum and Erratum entries. There are 824 memorandum entries, which tend to be those where a promotion has not occurred. There are 584 Erratum (plural Errata) entries, which are frequently mis-readings of handwriting by the original compilers which have been corrected later. The dates for the Erratum entries tend to follow the internal dating provided by the War Office of the entries and therefore don’t usually match the date of the issue of the London Gazette.
Battle of Waterloo
The Battle of Waterloo took place on 18 June 1815 near Waterloo in present-day Belgium, which was then part of the United Kingdom of the Netherlands. A French army under Napoleon’s command was defeated by the armies of the Seventh Coalition, made up of an Anglo-allied army under the command of the Duke of Wellington combined with a Prussian army under the command of Gebhard von Blucher.
When Napoleon returned to power in March 1815, many states that had opposed him formed the Seventh Coalition and started to mobilise armies. Large forces under Wellington and Blucher assembled near the north-eastern border of France. Napoleon chose to attack in the hope of destroying these two armies before they could unite in a coordinated invasion of France with other members of the coalition. Waterloo marked the end of Napoleon’s reign and the end of France’s domination in Europe. Following the battle, Napoleon abdicated and later died in exile.
There are 116 barons included in these records, 18 earls, 17 lords, three dukes, one prince (Henry of Reuss), and one marquess.
Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington
Field Marshal Arthur Wellesley was born in Dublin, Ireland in 1769 to an Anglo-Irish family. He was commissioned as an ensign to the British Army in 1787 and served as aide-de-camp to two Lords Lieutenant of Ireland. Wellesley was also elected as a Member of Parliament in the Irish House of Commons. A colonel by 1796, he was posted to India and came to prominence as a general during the Peninsular campaign of the Napoleonic Wars and was promoted to the rank of field marshal after he led the allied forces to victory against the French at the Battle of Vitoria in 1813. Following Napoleon’s exile the following year, Wellesley served as the ambassador to France and was made a duke. During the Hundred Days in 1815, he led the allied army which, together with a Prussian army under Blucher, defeated Napoleon at the Battle of Waterloo. In total, he took part in some 60 battles during the course of his military career. He is famed for his adaptive defensive style of warfare, which resulted in a number of victories against larger armies while minimising his own losses. Wellesley is considered one of the greatest defensive commanders of all time, with many of his tactics and battle plans still studied in military academies around the globe. He was prime minister of Britain from 1828 to 1830 and again for a brief period in 1834. Wellesley remained Commander-in-Chief of the British Army until his death in 1852.
Prince Adolphus Frederick, Duke of Cambridge
Prince Adolphus was born in 1774, the tenth child and seventh son of King George III and Queen Charlotte. In 1790, he went to Berlin to study military tactics and became a colonel in the Hanoverian army. In 1803, Adolphus was made commander-in-chief of the newly formed King’s German Legion and became field marshal in 1813.
Ernest Augustus, Duke of Cumberland
Ernest Augustus was born in 1771, the eighth child and fifth son of King George III and Queen Charlotte. George III reigned in both Britain and Hanover, and Ernest became King of Hanover from 1837 until his death in 1851.
The notes of both Adolphus and Ernest in these records read:
“His Royal Highness the Prince Regent has been pleased in the name and on the behalf of His Majesty to appoint General His Royal Highness Ernest Augustus Duke of Cumberland KG and General His Royal Highness Adolphus Frederick Duke of Cambridge K G to be Field Marshalls in the Army by commissions dated November 26 1813”.