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William Amherst (British Army officer)

Field	Value
honorific_prefix	Lieutenant-General
name	William Amherst
image	Williamamherst.jpg
birth_date
death_date
birth_place	Sevenoaks, Kent
death_place	England
placeofburial_coordinates
allegiance	Kingdom of Great Britain
branch
rank	Lieutenant-General
battles	Seven Years' War
relations	William Amherst, 1st Earl Amherst (son)
Elizabeth Amherst Hale (daughter)

Elizabeth Amherst Hale (daughter)

Lieutenant-General William Amherst (5 February 1732 – 13 May 1781) was a British Army officer and politician. During the Seven Years' War, he led British forces that recaptured St. John's, Newfoundland from the French at the 1762 Battle of Signal Hill.

Early life

William Amherst was born, in Sevenoaks, Kent, into a family of lawyers. He married Elizabeth Amherst (Patterson). Their children included:

William Pitt Amherst, 1st Earl Amherst of Arracan, GCH, PC, a future Governor-General of India
Elizabeth Frances Amherst

Seven Years' War

Amherst was commissioned as an ensign in the First Regiment of Foot Guards in 1755. He eventually rose to the rank of lieutenant general in 1779. As a lieutenant colonel, Amherst was instrumental in the re-capture of St. John's from the French in 1762 at the Battle of Signal Hill. An area near Signal Hill at the entrance of St. John's harbour is named "Fort Amherst" in commemoration of his victory in 1762.

In 1766 he became Member of Parliament for Hythe, and in 1768 he became MP for Launceston until 1774.

In 1769 he built a house in Ryde, on the Isle of Wight. He named the house and estate St John's, after his victory in Newfoundland. The neighborhood of Ryde that surrounds the house is still known by that name.

He was appointed Adjutant-General to the Forces in 1778: he died while serving in that role in 1781.

Notes

References

Chartrand p.24.
[http://ngb.chebucto.org/Articles/amherst-1762.shtml The Recapture of St. John's, Newfoundland in 1762]
"Leigh Rayment's House of Commons pages".
"Leigh Rayment's House of Commons pages".
[https://archive.today/20120908112640/http://www.parksandgardens.ac.uk/index2.php?option=com_parksandgardens&task=site&id=6764&preview=1&Itemid= Parks and gardens UK, St John's House, (also known as Bishop Lovett Middle School), St John's Ryde, England]
{{London Gazette. (22 December 1778)
[http://www.lightinfantry.org.uk/regiments/dcli/duke_colonels.htm Light Infantry]{{dead link. (January 2018)

Wikipedia Source

This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page.

1732-births 1781-deaths military-personnel-from-kent british-army-personnel-of-the-french-and-indian-war british-mps-1761–1768 british-mps-1768–1774 grenadier-guards-officers people-from-sevenoaks members-of-the-parliament-of-great-britain-for-english-constituencies members-of-the-parliament-of-great-britain-for-launceston british-army-lieutenant-generals 32nd-regiment-of-foot-officers british-army-personnel-of-the-seven-years'-war

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