General A general officer is an Officer (armed forces), officer of highest military ranks, high rank in the army, armies, and in some nations' air forces, space forces, and marines or naval infantry. In some usages the term "general officer" refers t ...

Sir Robert Henry MacFarlane, KCB, GCH (19 April 1771 – 6 June 1843) was a

British Army The British Army is the principal land warfare force of the United Kingdom, a part of the British Armed Forces along with the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force. , the British Army comprises 79,380 regular full-time personnel, 4,090 Gurk ...

officer during the

Napoleonic Wars The Napoleonic Wars (1803–1815) were a series of major global conflicts pitting the French Empire and its allies, led by Napoleon I, against a fluctuating array of European states formed into various coalitions. It produced a period of Fren ...

Biography

He was born in

Calcutta Kolkata (, or , ; also known as Calcutta , List of renamed places in India#West Bengal, the official name until 2001) is the Capital city, capital of the Indian States and union territories of India, state of West Bengal, on the eastern ba ...

, the son of Captain Robert MacFarlane, 9th of Gartartan. He joined the British Army as an Ensign on 26 May 1780 and was promoted Lieutenant on 22 May 1793, Captain on 25 September 1793, Major on 12 November 1794, Lieutenant-Colonel on 19 September 1794, Colonel on 1 January 1800, Major-General on 25 April 1808, Lieutenant-General on 4 June 1813 and General 22 July 1830. MacFarlane was "a gallant and highly distinguished officer", who accompanied the expedition to Copenhagen in 1807. He served subsequently in Sicily as second-in-command under

Lord William Bentinck Lieutenant General Lord William Henry Cavendish-Bentinck (14 September 177417 June 1839), known as Lord William Bentinck, was a British soldier and statesman who served as the Governor of Fort William (Bengal) from 1828 to 1834 and the First G ...

. In 1823 he was made Colonel of the

89th Regiment of Foot The 89th (Princess Victoria's) Regiment of Foot was a regiment of the British Army, raised on 3 December 1793. Under the Childers Reforms the regiment amalgamated with the 87th (Royal Irish Fusiliers) Regiment of Foot to form the Princess Victor ...

, transferring in 1837 to be Colonel of the

32nd (Cornwall) Regiment of Foot The 32nd Regiment of Foot was an infantry regiment of the British Army, raised in 1702. Under the Childers Reforms it amalgamated with the 46th (South Devonshire) Regiment of Foot to form the Duke of Cornwall's Light Infantry in 1881. History ...

, a position he held until his death.

Family

Lady MacFarlane engraving of a portrait by Derby

On 10 February 1815, at

Palermo Palermo ( , ; scn, Palermu , locally also or ) is a city in southern Italy, the capital (political), capital of both the autonomous area, autonomous region of Sicily and the Metropolitan City of Palermo, the city's surrounding metropolitan ...

, MacFarlane married Maria Gertrude, eldest daughter of G. Henry Vankemper, (a captain in the Dutch Navy and Consul of the Netherlands at Tripoli).

Notes

References

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:MacFarlane, Robert 1771 births 1843 deaths British Army generals British Army personnel of the Napoleonic Wars Knights Commander of the Order of the Bath