Thomas Maitland (British Army officer)
James Campbell of Inverneill | |
|---|---|
| Succeeded by | Frederick Adam |
| Personal details | |
| Born | 10 March 1760 Knight Grand Cross of the Royal Guelphic Order |
| Military service | |
| Allegiance | United Kingdom |
| Branch/service | British Army |
| Rank | Lieutenant General |
| Unit | 62nd (Wiltshire) Regiment of Foot |
| Commands | General Officer Commanding, Ceylon |
| Battles/wars | Peninsular War Napoleonic Wars Haitian Revolution |
Privy Councillor on 23 November 1803. He was the second surviving son of James Maitland, 7th Earl of Lauderdale, and the younger brother of James Maitland, 8th Earl of Lauderdale
. Maitland never married.
Early military career
 |
Maitland was commissioned into the Edinburgh Light Horse, shortly after his birth, but did not take up his commission until he joined the
brigadier-general
in 1798.
Haitian Revolution
Toussaint L'Ouverture
to discuss the secret treatyIn 1797, Maitland landed in
ancien regime, slavery and discrimination against mixed-race colonists, a move that drew criticism from abolitionists William Wilberforce and Thomas Clarkson.[1][2]
Elkins and McKitrick[3] write:
It was in fact Maitland and not the War Ministry who had determined that Britain's only sensible choice, rather than try to maintain any kind of presence at Jérémie and Môle-Saint-Nicolas, was to deal directly with Louverture and negotiate a total evacuation of the island. Accordingly he and the black general concluded a secret agreement on August 31, 1798. Great Britain would desist from any further attack on St. Domingue and any interference with its internal affairs; Louverture made a similar promise with regard to Jamaica; and Maitland would see that provisions were allowed to reach the ports of St. Domingue without interference from British cruisers.
In May 1799, Maitland returned to Saint-Domingue to negotiate an extension of the agreement with Louverture. On 13 June, in the presence of Edward Stevens, the representative of the United States on the island, Maitland and Louverture signed the Maitland Convention, which stipulated that the ports of Le Cap and Port-Républicain would be opened to Anglo-American shipping.[4]
Governor of Ceylon
Maitland served as Governor of
Ceylon (Sri Lanka
) during 1805 to 1811.
While at Ceylon, Maitland was attracted to a place at "Galkissa" (Mount Lavinia) and decided to construct his palace there.
During this time, Maitland fell in love with a half-caste dancing-girl named Lovina, who had been born to Portuguese and Sinhalese parents. A folktale sometimes repeated states that during the construction of the palace, Maitland gave instructions for the construction of a secret tunnel to Lovina's house, which was located close to the governor's palace. One end of the tunnel was inside the well of Lovina's house and the other end was in a wine cellar inside the governor's palace. When the governor came to reside there, he would often use the tunnel to meet Lovina.[5][6] The Sinhalese village that surrounded the Governor's mansion developed into a modern city named "Galkissa". Later the city was renamed "Mount Lavinia" in honour of Lovina. In 1920 the tunnel was sealed up. The bicentenary celebration of the Mount Lavinia Hotel was held in 2005. Some of Sir Thomas Maitland's relatives living in the UK attended the ceremony.[7] Two roads in central Colombo in modern-day Sri Lanka, are named for him, Maitland Crescent and Maitland Place.[8]
Peninsular War
In early 1812, The 1st Earl of Wellington began the campaign that resulted in his victory at the Battle of Salamanca on 22 July. To prevent Marshal
province of Valencia.[11] About 80,000 French soldiers, Maitland declined to move from Alicante.[10] Maitland asked to be relieved in September 1812 due to illness.[12]
Governor of Malta and of the Ionian Islands
Governor's Palace, Valletta
, Malta.jpg)
Maitland became
broken out in Malta in March 1813 and the disease began to spread especially in Valletta and the Grand Harbour area. Maitland arrived on the island on 3 October 1813 and took his oath of office on 5 October.[14]
Once in post, he enforced stricter quarantine measures. The plague spread to Gozo by the following January, but the islands were free of the disease by March 1814. Overall, 4486 people were killed which amounted to 4% of the total population. It is thought that the outbreak would have been worse without Maitland's strict actions.
After the eradication of the plague, Maitland made several reforms. He removed British troops from
Malta Police Force in 1814, while the local Italian-speaking Università was dissolved in 1819. Various reforms were undertaken in taxation and the law courts as well. Maitland remained Governor until his death from apoplexy on 17 January 1824.[16] He was attended on his death-bed by doctors Robert Grieves, Alexander Broadfoot and John Hennen.[17]
While he was Governor of Malta, Maitland also served as
Lord High Commissioner of the Ionian Islands during 1815 to 1823, while the islands were a British protectorate. The seat of administration was at Corfu, where he was represented by Sir Frederick Hankey, his private secretary. The neoclassical Maitland Monument was built there in his honour in 1821.[18]
Citations
- ^ C.L.R. James, Black Jacobins (London: Penguin, 1938), p. 109.
- ^ David Geggus, Slavery, War and Revolution: The British Occupation of Saint Domingue, 1793–1798 (New York: Clarendon Press, 1982).
- ^ Elkins and McKitrick, The Age of Federalism, p. 656
- ISBN 978-0141985060
- ^ Seneviratne, The story of Mount Lavinia Hotel, pp. 20–22
- ^ Aves, Sri Lanka, p. 79
- ^ "History of the Mount Lavinia hotel". Hotel's Website. Archived from the original on 20 August 2008. Retrieved 29 September 2007.
- ^ Ranatunga, D.C. (5 May 2011). "What's in a name?". Daily FT. Retrieved 30 May 2021.
- ^ Glover, Peninsular War, pp. 268–269
- ^ a b Gates, Spanish Ulcer, p. 364
- ^ Glover, Peninsular War, pp. 207–210
- ^ Glover, Peninsular War, p. 270
- ^ "No. 16733". The London Gazette. 25 May 1813. p. 1018.
- ^ Grech, Chris (26 October 2013). "Sir Hildebrand Oakes' resignation as Governor of Malta in 1813". Times of Malta. Malta. Retrieved 2 June 2020.
- ^ Zerafa, Thomas (17 July 2011). "When the British planned to make Lampedusa part of the Maltese Islands". Times of Malta. Retrieved 21 September 2014.
- ^ Sciberras, Sandro. "Maltese History – G. The First Years of British Rule 1800–1824" (PDF). St Benedict College. Archived from the original (PDF) on 16 April 2014. Retrieved 21 September 2014.
- ^ "Assistant Surgeon John Hennen MD (Ed 1819)". British Army Medical Services and the Malta Garrison 1799–1979. Retrieved 30 May 2021.
- ^ "161. Κερκυρα, Σπιαναδα". tab.ionio.gr (in Greek). Archived from the original on 13 November 2017.
See also
- Mount Lavinia Hotel
- Maitland Plan
- Law enforcement in Malta
References
- Aves, Edward (2003) Sri Lanka. Bath, England: Footprint. ISBN 1-903471-78-8.
- Elkins, Stanley M. and Eric McKitrick (1993) The Age of Federalism. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-506890-4.
- Gates, David (2002). The Spanish Ulcer: A History of the Peninsular War. London: Pimlico. ISBN 0-7126-9730-6.
- ISBN 0-141-39041-7.
- James, C.L.R. (2001) The Black Jacobins: Toussaint L'Ouverture and the San Domingo Revolution. London: Penguin Books. ISBN 0140299815.
- Seneviratne, Maureen (1995) The story of Mount Lavinia Hotel. Colombo, Sri Lanka: McCallum Publishers. OCLC 37579642.
Further reading
- Dixon, Cyril Willis (1939) The Colonial Administrations of Sir Thomas Maitland Longmans, Green and Company, London, OCLC 461019
- Hulugalle, H. A. J. (1963) "Sir Thomas Maitland (1805–1811)" British Governors of Ceylon Associated Newspapers of Ceylon, Colombo, Sri Lanka, pp. 18–25, OCLC 4175720
External links
- Chichester, H.M. (1893). . Dictionary of National Biography. Vol. 35. p. 374–376.
- The Louverture Project: Thomas Maitland – Thomas Maitland and the Haitian Revolution.
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