Lord Frederick FitzClarence

63
Lord Frederick FitzClarence bigraphy, stories - British general

Lord Frederick FitzClarence : biography

9 December 1799 – 30 October 1854

Lieutenant-General Lord Frederick FitzClarence, GCH (9 December 1799 – 30 October 1854) was a British Army officer as well as being the illegitimate third son of King William IV and his mistress, Dorothea Jordan.

Family

On 19 May 1821, he married Lady Augusta Boyle (d. 28 July 1876), the eldest daughter of the 4th Earl of Glasgow. They had two children:

  • Augusta FitzClarence (December 1824 – 18 October 1865)
  • William FitzClarence (b. & d. 1827)

Ancestry

Military career

FitzClarence was commissioned as an officer in the British Army in 1814. The Gentleman’s Magazine, 1855, p.304 While a captain in the Coldstream Guards, FitzClarence commanded a small detachment of Guards to act in support of the police with the arrest of the Cato Street conspirators in 1820. The arrest was not straightforward, and a scuffle ensued.Morning Chronicle, Thursday, 24 February 1820, as replicated on The Naval and Military Gazette (May 1845) identified Sgt James Graham as the man who saved FitzClarence’s life.Chichester, H.M.; "Graham, James (1791–1845)", (rev. James Lunt), Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004

Frederick FitzClarence gained the rank of Colonel in the service of the 36th (Herefordshire) Regiment of Foot. On 24 May 1831 he was granted the rank of a marquess’ younger son. Having been invested as a Knight Grand Cross of the Royal Guelphic Order (G.C.H.) that same year, he became Military Governor of Portsmouth in 1840 and then Commander-in-Chief of the Bombay Army in 1852. He died in office in October 1854.