George Keppel, 3rd Earl of Albemarle

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PC
George Keppel, 3rd Earl of Albemarle, Francis Cotes
Born(1724-04-08)8 April 1724
London, England, Great Britain
Died13 October 1772(1772-10-13) (aged 48)
London, England, Great Britain
Allegiance Great Britain
Service/branch British Army
Years of service1745-1762
RankColonel
General
Commands held3rd (The King's Own) Regiment of Dragoons
Battles/wars
Spouse(s)Anne Miller

George Keppel, 3rd Earl of Albemarle

PC (London, 8 April 1724 – 13 October 1772), styled Viscount Bury until 1754, was a British general and nobleman. He is best known for his decisive victory over the Spanish during capture of Havana in 1762, as part of the Seven Years' War
.

Early life

He came from a wealthy and powerful

Guelders who had close connections to the Princes of Orange that had moved to England in the seventeenth century, in the aftermath of the Glorious Revolution. His father was Willem van Keppel, 2nd Earl of Albemarle. Through his mother, Lady Anne Lennox, he was a great-grandson of King Charles II of England. He started his military career serving in the Dutch Army fighting against the French, and in 1745, Keppel participated in the Battle of Fontenoy as an aide to Prince William, Duke of Cumberland
.

Military career

General William Keppel, Storming the Morro Castle, by Joshua Reynolds

George Keppel had been previously in his military life commissioned an ensign in the Coldstream Guards in 1738, becoming a captain-lieutenant of the 1st Regiment of Dragoons in 1741, aged 17, and a captain-lieutenant of the Coldstreams on 7 April 1743. Appointed aide-de-camp to the Duke of Cumberland in February 1745, was promoted to captain and lieutenant-colonel on 27 May 1745. The next year, he was promoted colonel and made aide-de-camp to the King on 24 April 1746. He had fought at the Battle of Culloden with his father and carried the dispatch of Cumberland's success to London.

Bury, later 3rd Earl of Albemarle, was returned as Member of Parliament for

20th Regiment of Foot. He succeeded to the earldom on the death of his father in 1754; his younger brother Augustus
replaced him as MP for Chichester.

On 8 April 1755, he became colonel of the

Privy Counsellor
on 28 January.

The outbreak of the

the war in the favour of the British
.

Later life

Quartered coat of arms of George Keppel, 3rd Earl of Albemarle, KG, PC

Keppel was made a

Knight of the Garter in 1765 and was appointed Keeper of Bagshot Park in 1766. On 20 April 1770 at Bagshot Park, he married Anne Miller (died 3 July 1824), daughter of Sir John Miller, 4th Baronet, by whom he had a son, William Charles
(1772–1849).

Politically, he was a prominent member of the

general
on 26 May 1772, and died in October of that year.

Legacy

Albemarle Street in Halifax, Nova Scotia is named after him.

See also

  • Great Britain in the Seven Years War

References

  • Doyle, James William Edmund (1885). The Official Baronage of England. London: Longmans, Green. p. 35. Retrieved 14 June 2008.

External links

Parliament of Great Britain
Preceded by
Member of Parliament for Chichester
with John Page
1746–1754
 Succeeded by
Military offices
Preceded by Colonel of the 20th Regiment of Foot
1749–1755 		Succeeded by
Philip Honywood
Preceded by Colonel of the 3rd (The King's Own) Regiment of Dragoons
1755–1772 		Succeeded by
Peerage of England
Preceded by Earl of Albemarle
1754–1772 		Succeeded by
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