Charles Cathcart, 2nd Earl Cathcart
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General A general officer is an Officer (armed forces), officer of high rank in the army, armies, and in some nations' air force, air and space forces, marines or naval infantry. In some usages, the term "general officer" refers to a rank above colone ...
Charles Murray Cathcart, 2nd Earl Cathcart (21 December 1783 – 16 July 1859), styled Lord Greenock between 1814 and 1843, was a
British Army The British Army is the principal Army, land warfare force of the United Kingdom. the British Army comprises 73,847 regular full-time personnel, 4,127 Brigade of Gurkhas, Gurkhas, 25,742 Army Reserve (United Kingdom), volunteer reserve perso ...
general who became
Governor General of the Province of Canada The Governor General of the Province of Canada was the viceregal post of the pre-Confederation Province of Canada that existed from 1841 to Canadian Confederation in 1867. The post replaced the Governor General of New France and later Governor Ge ...
(26 November 1845 – 30 January 1847). He was a keen amateur geologist, with enough recognition to warrant being made a Fellow of the
Royal Society of Edinburgh The Royal Society of Edinburgh (RSE) is Scotland's national academy of science and letters. It is a registered charity that operates on a wholly independent and non-partisan basis and provides public benefit throughout Scotland. It was establis ...
.


Early life

Cathcart was born at Walton,
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, on 21 December 1783, the eldest surviving son of William Cathcart, 10th Lord Cathcart (later the 1st Earl Cathcart).


Career

Cathcart entered the army as a
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in the
2nd Regiment of Life Guards The 2nd Regiment of Life Guards was a cavalry regiment in the British Army, part of the Household Cavalry. It was formed in 1788 by the union of the 2nd Troop of Horse Guards and 2nd Troop of Horse Grenadier Guards. In 1922, it was amalgamate ...
on 2 March 1800. He served on the staff of Sir
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in Naples and Sicily. He became heir apparent to the lordship of Cathcart in 1804, after his brother William Cathcart, Master of Cathcart died while commanding a Royal Navy vessel in the West Indies. After his father was elevated to an earldom in 1814 he became known by the
courtesy title A courtesy title is a title that does not have legal significance but is rather used by custom or courtesy, particularly, in the context of nobility, the titles used by children of members of the nobility (cf. substantive title). In some context ...
Lord Greenock. Cathcart saw service on the ill-fated
Walcheren Expedition The Walcheren Campaign () was an unsuccessful British expedition to the Kingdom of Holland in 1809 intended to open another front in the Austrian Empire's struggle with France during the War of the Fifth Coalition. John Pitt, 2nd Earl of Ch ...
in 1809 and at the siege of
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, after which for some time he was disabled by the injurious effects of the pestilence which cut off so many thousands of his companions. Becoming lieutenant colonel on 30 August 1810, he embarked for the Peninsula, where he was present at the
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, for which he received a
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on 6 April 1812, at the
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, and the
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, during which he served as assistant quartermaster-general. He was next sent to assist Sir
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in Holland as the head of the quartermaster-general's staff and was present at the ill-fated Siege of Bergen op Zoom in March 1814. Thereafter he was present at the
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, where he had three horses shot from under him. He was awarded the Russian
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, the Dutch
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, and made a Companion of the
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(CB). In 1823, he was appointed a lieutenant colonel in the royal staff corps at
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. In 1830 he moved to
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where lived at "Whitehouse villa" on
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. He became involved in the proceedings of the Highland Society, became a Fellow of the
Royal Society of Edinburgh The Royal Society of Edinburgh (RSE) is Scotland's national academy of science and letters. It is a registered charity that operates on a wholly independent and non-partisan basis and provides public benefit throughout Scotland. It was establis ...
and where he announced the discovery of a new mineral, a sulphide of cadmium, which was found in excavating the Bishopton tunnel near
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and which is now known as Greenockite. On 17 February 1837 he was made Commander-in-Chief, Scotland and Governor of Edinburgh Castle. On 17 June 1838, on the death of his father, he became second earl and eleventh baron Cathcart. On 16 March 1846 he was appointed commander-in-chief in British North America from 16 March 1846 and in 1850 he was appointed to the command of the Northern and Midland District, and in 1855 he retired.


Family

On 30 September 1818 he married Henrietta Mather, daughter of Thomas Mather in France. The couple remarried at Portsea, England, 12 February 1819. Lady Cathcart accompanied her husband, and their daughters, to Canada in June, 1845. Lady Cathcart presented colours to one of the militia regiments in Montreal. The family returned to England in May, 1847. His daughter Elizabeth married General Sir John Douglas.Chronicles of the Plumsted Family
Eugene Devereux, Philadelphia, 1887, p. 48-50
Cathcart died at St. Leonard's-on-Sea on 16 July 1859. His wife died on 24 June 1872.


Publications

He was the author of two papers in the ''Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh'' in 1836, ''On the Phenomena in the neighbourhood of Edinburgh of the Igneous Rocks in their relation to the Secondary Strata,'' and ''The Coal Formation of the Scottish Lowlands.''


References


Sources

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External links

* , - , - , - , - , - , - {{DEFAULTSORT:Cathcart, Charles Cathcart, 2nd Earl 11th Hussars officers 1783 births 1859 deaths 1st King's Dragoon Guards officers 3rd Dragoon Guards officers British Army generals British Army personnel of the French Revolutionary Wars British Army personnel of the Napoleonic Wars British Life Guards officers Chancellors of the University of Toronto Earls in the Peerage of the United Kingdom Fellows of the Royal Society of Edinburgh Governors-general of the Province of Canada Knights Fourth Class of the Military Order of William Knights Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath People from Walton-on-the-Naze Recipients of the Order of St. Vladimir, 4th class Recipients of the Waterloo Medal Royal Staff Corps officers Military personnel from Essex Earl 02