Luke Lillingstone or Lillingston (1653–1713) was a British Army general who accompanied William of Orange to England in 1688.

Early life

Lillingstone's surname is variably spelled Lillingstone, Lillingston and Lillingstein. He was born to Colonel Henry Lillingstone, of German extraction from

Lilienstein Lilienstein is a highly distinctive mountain in Saxon Switzerland, in Saxony, southeastern Germany, and was once the site of a Bohemian castle. It is one of the few table mountains on the east of the river Elbe and constitutes the symbol of the S ...

. His maternal uncle, Colonel Thomas Dolman, served with his father in the Anglo-Dutch Brigade. Lillingstone himself was commissioned as an officer in the Brigade in 1673 and in 1688 he accompanied William of Orange to England.

Command

After fighting against

Jacobite Jacobite means follower of Jacob or James. Jacobite may refer to: Religion * Jacobites, followers of Saint Jacob Baradaeus (died 578). Churches in the Jacobite tradition and sometimes called Jacobite include: ** Syriac Orthodox Church, sometimes ...

forces in Ireland, Lillingstone received his first command in 1692, when he took over the colonelcy of Jonathan Foulkes's Regiment on the latter's death. On assuming command the regiment became Luke Lillingstone's Regiment of Foot, and was to be the first of three regiments to bear this title. Lillingstone's regiment was disbanded in 1694, but was reraised the same year for service in the West Indies. This second regiment was disbanded in 1696 or 1697. Kings Head Lichfield

Lillingstone was without a command until 1705, when he was authorised to raise a regiment of foot. The third Lillingstone's Regiment was duly raised at the King's Head, Bird Street, Lichfield on 25 March 1705. The regiment was ordered to

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in 1707, but Lillingstone did not accompany it. In 1708 Lillingstone was promoted to the rank of brigadier-general, and ordered to join his regiment. He refused, and was dismissed on 2 June. Lillingstone's Regiment was given to his second-in-command, becoming James Jones's Regiment of Foot. The regiment continued in existence, becoming the

38th Regiment of Foot The 38th (1st Staffordshire) Regiment of Foot was an infantry regiment of the British Army, raised in 1705. Under the Childers Reforms it amalgamated with the 80th Regiment of Foot (Staffordshire Volunteers) to form the South Staffordshire Regime ...

in 1751, one of the forebears of the modern Mercian Regiment.

Later life

Lillingstone was refused the purchase price of his regiment, and this led to the forced sale of his estate, Ferriby Grange, North Ferriby, in the East Riding of Yorkshire. Lillingstone was married twice, first to Elizabeth, daughter of Robert Sanderson of Bonnel, who died on 18 Oct. 1699. His second wife was Catherine, daughter and heiress of Colonel Hassell of Kirby Grindalyth, Yorkshire. Neither marriage produced a male heir and Lillingstone's estates of North Ferriby and Kirby Grindalyth passed to his sister's son, Luke Bowden, who took the name of Lillingstone, and whose granddaughter married and gave her surname to Abraham Spooner in 1797. Abraham Spooner Lillingstone was a son of the banker

Isaac Spooner Isaac Spooner (c.1735–1816) was an English ironmaster and banker who founded Birmingham Bank. Life Spooner was born to Abraham Spooner and Anne Knight, he went into the family iron business based around a furnace at Aston, in the Birmingham a ...

and brother-in-law to William Wilberforce by his sister

Barbara Ann Spooner Barbara Ann Wilberforce (née Spooner; 24 December 1777 – 21 April 1847) was the spouse of abolitionist and MP William Wilberforce. Early life She was born in Birches Green, Erdington, Warwickshire, and died in The Vicarage, East Farleigh, Ke ...

. Lillingstone died on 6 April 1713, and a monument to his memory was erected in the parish church of All Saints, North Ferriby. The monument features life-size effigies of Lillingstone and his second wife.All Saints North Ferriby (accessed 11 September 2007)
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References

*John Childs, 'Lillingstone illingston Luke (1653–1713)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 200

{{DEFAULTSORT:Lillingstone, Luke 1653 births 1713 deaths British Army brigadiers English army officers