Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 60.djvu/390

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he served with his regiment in the defence of Boston, and at the actions of Brooklyn, Whiteplains, Princeton, Brandywine, Monmouth, and others. In 1780 he was in command of a company serving as marines on the Alfred, and shared in Rodney's victory off Cape St. Vincent. On 17 May 1781 he was made captain of an independent company which he had raised, and which was embodied in the 104th foot on 2 March 1782.

He exchanged to the 11th foot on 16 April 1783, served six years with that regiment at Gibraltar, and accompanied the Duke of Kent to Canada in 1790. He was aide-de-camp to the duke during the operations under Sir Charles Grey in the West Indies, and he received two wounds at the taking of Martinique in March 1794. He had become major in the 11th on 1 March, and in August, when the Duke of Kent took command of the troops at Halifax, Nova Scotia, he was appointed deputy adjutant-general there. On 20 May 1795 he obtained the lieutenant-colonelcy of Keppel's regiment, newly raised for service in the West Indies. He served with it in San Domingo, and while on his way to Barbados with despatches he was wounded and taken prisoner. He was kept in irons at Guadeloupe for nine months before he was exchanged, and suffered such privations that some men of the 32nd, who were also prisoners, raised a subscription for him. On 3 Aug. 1796 he was transferred to the lieutenant-colonelcy of the 82nd regiment, which was then in San Domingo.

When the Duke of Kent became commander-in-chief in North America in 1799, Wetherall again served on his staff as adjutant-general, but the duke resigned next year. On 29 April 1802 Wetherall was made brevet colonel, and in 1803 he raised a regiment of Nova Scotia fencibles, and was made colonel of it on 9 July. In May 1806 he was appointed brigadier in the Caribee Islands, and in October at the Cape of Good Hope. On 25 Oct. 1809 he was promoted major-general, and placed on the staff in India. On his way there, in the East India Company's ship Wyndham, he was taken prisoner early in 1810 after a severe action in the Mozambique Channel, and was carried to Ile de France (Mauritius). He was exchanged after two months' captivity, and went on to Calcutta.

In November 1810 he was appointed second in command, under Sir Samuel Auchmuty [q. v.], in the expedition to Java. He was thanked in general orders for his share in the battle of Cornelis, on 26 Aug. 1811, and received the thanks of parliament and the gold medal for the conquest of Java. He afterwards returned to India, and held command in Mysore till June 1815. He had became lieutenant-general on 4 June 1814. He was equerry, and afterwards executor, to the Duke of Kent, and received the grand cross of the Hanoverian order in 1833. He was promoted general on 10 Jan. 1837, and was given the colonelcy of the 62nd foot, from which he was transferred to his old regiment, the 17th, on 17 Feb. 1840.

He died at Castlehill, Ealing, on 18 Dec. 1842, aged 88. He married, first, Elizabeth, daughter of George Mytton, by whom he had a son, (Sir) George Augustus Wetherall [q. v.]; and, secondly, in 1817, the widow of Major Broad, and daughter of W. Mair of Kensington.

[Royal Military Calendar, ii. 359; Gent. Mag. 1843, i. 318; Cannon's Records of the 17th Regiment; Burke's Landed Gentry, 1894, ii. 2181; Neale's Life of the Duke of Kent; Thorn's Conquest of Java.]

E. M. L.

WETHERALL, Sir GEORGE AUGUSTUS (1788–1868), general, born in 1788, was the son of General Sir Frederick Augustus Wetherall [q. v.] He was educated at the Hyde Abbey school, Winchester, and the Military College, Farnham, being already commissioned as lieutenant in the 7th (royal fusiliers) on 29 July 1795. In 1798 he was placed on half-pay, but on 9 July 1803 he joined the regiment of Nova Scotia fencibles formed by his father. Hitherto his name had been shown in the army list as ‘F. Augustus,’ but the seniority given to him marks his identity. He became captain on 13 May 1805, and exchanged to the 1st (royals) on 27 Nov. 1806.

He was brigade-major under his father at the Cape of Good Hope in 1809, was taken prisoner with him on passage to India in 1810, and served as his aide-de-camp in the conquest of Java in 1811. He was made brevet major on 12 Aug. 1819, and regimental major on 30 Dec. He was military secretary to the commander-in-chief at Madras from 1822 to 1825, and deputy judge-advocate-general in 1826. On 11 Dec. 1824 he was made brevet lieutenant-colonel, and on 7 Aug. 1828 lieutenant-colonel of the royals. He commanded the second battalion of it at Bangalore, in the Madras presidency, brought it home in 1831, and went with it to Canada in 1836. He was in command of the troops at Montreal when the insurrection broke out in the autumn of 1837. On 25 Nov., at the head