Lieutenant-General William Staveley (29 July 1784 – 4 April 1854) 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 who fought in the

Peninsular War The Peninsular War (1807–1814) was the military conflict fought in the Iberian Peninsula by Spain, Portugal, and the United Kingdom against the invading and occupying forces of the First French Empire during the Napoleonic Wars. In Spain ...

and later became Commander and Lieutenant Governor of Hong Kong.

Military career

Staveley was born in

York York is a cathedral city with Roman origins, sited at the confluence of the rivers Ouse and Foss in North Yorkshire, England. It is the historic county town of Yorkshire. The city has many historic buildings and other structures, such as a ...

, the son of William Staveley and Henrietta Henderson. He entered the

in 1798 as an ensign. Staveley fought in several conflicts in the

(

Battle of Talavera The Battle of Talavera (27–28 July 1809) was fought just outside the town of Talavera de la Reina, Spain some southwest of Madrid, during the Peninsular War. At Talavera, a British army under Sir Arthur Wellesley combined with a Spanish a ...

, Battle of Fuentes de Onoro,

Battle of Vittoria At the Battle of Vitoria (21 June 1813) a British, Portuguese and Spanish army under the Marquess of Wellington broke the French army under King Joseph Bonaparte and Marshal Jean-Baptiste Jourdan near Vitoria in Spain, eventually leading ...

Battle of the Pyrenees The Battle of the Pyrenees was a large-scale offensive (the author David Chandler recognises the 'battle' as an offensive) launched on 25 July 1813 by Marshal Nicolas Jean de Dieu Soult from the Pyrénées region on Emperor Napoleon’s or ...

, Battle of Toulouse,

Siege of Ciudad Rodrigo Sieges of Ciudad Rodrigo are a series of sieges of the Spanish town Ciudad Rodrigo. Specific sieges are: * Siege of Ciudad Rodrigo (1370) * Siege of Ciudad Rodrigo (1707) * Siege of Ciudad Rodrigo (1810) * Siege of Ciudad Rodrigo (1812) ...

and Battle of Badajoz and many other minor actions). At the 1815

Battle of Waterloo The Battle of Waterloo was fought on Sunday 18 June 1815, near Waterloo, Belgium, Waterloo (at that time in the United Kingdom of the Netherlands, now in Belgium). A French army under the command of Napoleon was defeated by two of the armie ...

, Staveley was present as a captain in the Royal Staff Corps, afterwards receiving the

Companion of the Bath The Most Honourable Order of the Bath is a British order of chivalry founded by George I on 18 May 1725. The name derives from the elaborate medieval ceremony for appointing a knight, which involved bathing (as a symbol of purification) as on ...

(CB) and a promotion to brevet Lieutenant-colonel. He went to

Mauritius Mauritius ( ; french: Maurice, link=no ; mfe, label= Mauritian Creole, Moris ), officially the Republic of Mauritius, is an island nation in the Indian Ocean about off the southeast coast of the African continent, east of Madagascar. It ...

in 1821 and served in various roles (deputy quartermaster-general and commandant of

Port Louis Port Louis (french: Port-Louis; mfe, label= Mauritian Creole, Polwi or , ) is the capital city of Mauritius. It is mainly located in the Port Louis District, with a small western part in the Black River District. Port Louis is the country's e ...

) before becoming Commander and Lieutenant Governor of Hong Kong in 1847. After leaving Hong Kong in 1851, he was given command of the

Bombay Army The Bombay Army was the army of the Bombay Presidency, one of the three presidencies of British India. It was established in 1662 and governed by the East India Company until the Government of India Act 1858 transferred all presidencies to the d ...

. In 1853, he was made Colonel of the 24th Regiment of Foot and appointed commander-in-chief of the Madras Army (with local rank of lieutenant-general). He died in the

Nilgiri Hills The Nilgiri Mountains form part of the Western Ghats in northwestern Tamil Nadu, Southern Karnataka, and eastern Kerala in India. They are located at the trijunction of three states and connect the Western Ghats with the Eastern Ghats. At le ...

, and was buried at

Ootacamund Ooty (), officially known as Udhagamandalam (also known as Ootacamund (); abbreviated as Udhagai), is a city and a municipality in the Nilgiris district of the South Indian state of Tamil Nadu. It is located north west of Coimbatore and ...

Staveley Street

Staveley Street () is a street in Central on the Hong Kong Island,

Hong Kong Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China (abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China on the eastern Pearl River Delta i ...

, named after Staveley. The street is for pedestrians only and parallel to Peel Street.

Family

He married Sarah Mather in 1817. Their children included Charles William Dunbar Staveley, Harriet Frances Staveley, and Caroline Octavia Emma Staveley, who in 1847 married

Talavera Vernon Anson Admiral Talavera Vernon Anson (26 November 1809 – 8 September 1895) was a Royal Navy officer who took part in the Greek War of Independence and the First Opium War. Early life Born in 1809, Anson was the second son of General Sir George Anso ...

RN.'General Sir George Anson, G.C.B', obituary in ''

The Gentleman's Magazine ''The Gentleman's Magazine'' was a monthly magazine founded in London, England, by Edward Cave in January 1731. It ran uninterrupted for almost 200 years, until 1922. It was the first to use the term '' magazine'' (from the French ''magazine ...

'', January 1850, pp. 87–88

References

External links

*Jackson, Louis (1935).
One of Wellington's Staff Officers: Lieut.-General William Staveley, C.B.
. ''Journal of the Society for Army Historical Research'' 14 (55): 155–166.
His son's bibliography in Worcestershire Regiment
, - , - {{DEFAULTSORT:Staveley, William 1784 births 1854 deaths British Army generals British Army personnel of the Napoleonic Wars Commanders of Hong Kong Companions of the Order of the Bath Military personnel from York Royal Staff Corps officers