William Haviland (1718 – 16 September 1784) was an

Irish Irish may refer to: Common meanings * Someone or something of, from, or related to: ** Ireland, an island situated off the north-western coast of continental Europe ***Éire, Irish language name for the isle ** Northern Ireland, a constituent unit ...

-born general in the

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 ...

. He is best known for his service in

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during the

Seven Years' War The Seven Years' War (1756–1763) was a global conflict that involved most of the European Great Powers, and was fought primarily in Europe, the Americas, and Asia-Pacific. Other concurrent conflicts include the French and Indian War (1754� ...

Life

William Haviland was born in

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in 1718. He entered military service as an ensign in the

43rd Foot The 43rd (Monmouthshire) Regiment of Foot was an infantry regiment of the British Army, raised in 1741. Under the Childers Reforms it amalgamated with the 52nd (Oxfordshire) Regiment of Foot (Light Infantry) to form the 1st and 2nd battalions of t ...

in 1739, and first saw action during the

War of Jenkins' Ear The War of Jenkins' Ear, or , was a conflict lasting from 1739 to 1748 between Britain and the Spanish Empire. The majority of the fighting took place in New Granada and the Caribbean Sea, with major operations largely ended by 1742. It is con ...

in a failed expedition against Cartagena (in present-day

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). He then served during the

Jacobite Rising of 1745 The Jacobite rising of 1745, also known as the Forty-five Rebellion or simply the '45 ( gd, Bliadhna Theàrlaich, , ), was an attempt by Charles Edward Stuart to regain the Monarchy of Great Britain, British throne for his father, James Franci ...

, and rose to the rank of lieutenant colonel by 1752. In 1757 he was sent to

, where he was first in

Lord Loudoun General John Campbell, 4th Earl of Loudoun (5 May 1705 – 27 April 1782) was a Scottish nobleman and British army officer. Early career Born in Scotland two years before the creation of the Kingdom of Great Britain, in which his father Hugh ...

's aborted expedition to Louisbourg. That winter, as a colonel he was placed in command of Fort Edward on the upper

Hudson River The Hudson River is a river that flows from north to south primarily through eastern New York. It originates in the Adirondack Mountains of Upstate New York and flows southward through the Hudson Valley to the New York Harbor between N ...

, the forward outpost on the frontier between British

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and

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. He participated in James Abercrombie's disastrous attack on Fort Carillon in 1758, leading one of the attacking columns. In 1759 he served under

Jeffery Amherst Field Marshal Jeffery Amherst, 1st Baron Amherst, (29 January 1717 – 3 August 1797) was a British Army officer and Commander-in-Chief of the Forces in the British Army. Amherst is credited as the architect of Britain's successful campaign ...

in his capture of Carillon, and was rewarded with promotion to brigadier general and command of the 1760 expedition from Ticonderoga to Montreal, upon which he joined Amherst and

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there at the capitulation of Canada in September 1760. He was then sent by Amherst, who had by then become

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,Heathcote p.24 to the

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, where he participated in the reduction of Martinique and

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in 1762, which garnered him a promotion to major general. In 1767 he was made colonel for life of the

45th Regiment of Foot The 45th (Nottinghamshire) (Sherwood Foresters) Regiment of Foot was a British Army line infantry regiment, raised in 1741. The regiment saw action during Father Le Loutre's War, the French and Indian War and the American Revolutionary War as w ...

. He was promoted to lieutenant general in 1774, and served in the defence of

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. He was promoted a full general in 1783, and died the following year. He was twice married, with a son and daughter by his second wife. During the Seven Years' War Haviland invented a kind of slide rule "that permitted an officer to quickly determine the number of men to be detached from each company of a regiment, or from a regiment in a larger force, if a draft was made against it, consisting of two circular wheels, one within the other, made of ivory, about three inches across, with useful information on regimental organization etched into the back, which was possibly the first mechanical administrative aide ever invented for officers serving in the field.""Suitable for Gentlemen of the Army," ''The Journal of the American Military Institute'', Vol. 3, No. 4 (Winter, 1939), pp. 263–264

References

*
''Harper's Popular Cyclopedia''

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Haviland, William 1718 births 1784 deaths British Army personnel of the War of the Austrian Succession British military personnel of the French and Indian War British Army personnel of the American Revolutionary War British Army personnel of the Seven Years' War British Army generals 43rd Regiment of Foot officers British Army personnel of the Jacobite rising of 1745 27th Regiment of Foot officers