Dictionary Thesaurus Word Dynamo Quotes Reference Translator Spanish

John Manners, Marquess of Granby

General John Manners, Marquess of Granby PC, (Kelham, 2 January 1721 – 18 October 1770, Scarborough), British soldier, was the eldest son of the 3rd Duke of Rutland. As he did not outlive his father, he was known by his father's subsidiary title, Marquess of Granby.

Early life

He was educated at Eton and Trinity College, Cambridge, and was returned as Member of Parliament for the family borough of Grantham in 1741. Four years later he received a commission as colonel of a regiment raised by the Rutland interest in and about Leicester to assist in quelling the Highland revolt of 1745. This corps never got beyond Newcastle, but young Granby went to the front as a volunteer on the Duke of Cumberland's staff, and saw active service in the last stages of the insurrection. Very soon his regiment was disbanded, but he retained his rank and campaigned in Flanders in 1747. He had two illegitimate children by an unknown mistress at about this time:

George Manners (c. 1746–1772)
Anne Manners, married John Manners-Sutton, her first cousin

During this period of his life, he acquired a reputation principally as a free-spending, gambling, sporting man. He married Lady Frances Seymour (1728–1761), daughter of Charles Seymour, 6th Duke of Somerset on 3 September 1750. They had six children:

John Manners, Lord Roos (29 August 1751 – 2 June 1760, London)
Lady Frances Manners (1753 – 15 October 1792), married on 9 July 1772 George Carpenter, 2nd Earl of Tyrconnel, divorced 1777; married on 27 October 1777 Philip Anstruther
Charles Manners, 4th Duke of Rutland (1754–1787)
Lady Catherine Manners, died young
Lord Robert Manners (1758–1782)
Lady Caroline Manners, died young

In 1752, the Pelham ministry suggested to George II that Granby be appointed colonel of the prestigious Royal Horse Guards (Blues), in order to secure the parliamentary support of his family. The king denounced Granby as a sot and a bully, and initially refused to make the appointment. In the meantime, Granby advanced his parliamentary career, and was returned for Cambridgeshire in 1754. Though he despised faction in government, he allied himself with Viscount Royston, the other knight of the shire, a government whig. The king came to view him more favorably, and he defended the Newcastle ministry in the House of Commons. He was promoted major-general in 1755, and was at last made Colonel of the Blues in 1758.

Military success

The same year that saw Granby made colonel of the Blues, saw also the despatch of a considerable British contingent to Germany, in which Granby commanded a brigade. He succeeded as second-in-command of the expedition in October, and was promoted lieutenant-general in February 1759. Minden was Granby's first great battle. At the head of the Blues he was one of the cavalry leaders halted at the critical moment by Lieutenant-General Sackville, and when in consequence that officer was sent home in disgrace, Granby succeeded to the command of the British contingent in Ferdinand's army, having 32,000 men under his orders at the beginning of 1760. He also replaced Sackville as Lieutenant-General of the Ordnance. During Sackville's court-martial, Granby testified that Sackville had led the cavalry forward too slowly. Although he suggested Sackville had not been negligent, he could not prevent a verdict of "guilty", and Sackville was thereafter embittered against him.

In the remaining campaigns of the Seven Years' War the English contingent was more conspicuous by its conduct than the Prussians themselves. On 31 July 1760 Granby brilliantly stormed Warburg at the head of the British cavalry, capturing 1500 men and ten pieces of artillery. Since his twenties, he had been almost entirely bald, but disdained to wear a wig; during the charge, he lost his hat, giving rise to the expression "going at it bald-headed". A year later (15 July 1761) the British defended the heights of Villinghausen with what Ferdinand himself styled "indescribable bravery". On the following day, he led his troops in a counter-attack and helped drive the French from the field. His opponent, the duc de Broglie, was so impressed that he commissioned a portrait of Granby by Sir Joshua Reynolds. In the last campaign, at Gravenstein and Wilhelmsthal, Homberg, Gudensberg and Cassel, Granby's men bore the brunt of the fighting and earned the greatest share of the glory. Lord Ligonier praised his conduct at Wilhelmsthal, where he cut off the French rearguard as "Il a manoeuvré comme un ange … no man ever acted with more courage or more like a commanding officer." His last field action was at Brückermühl, where he brought two brigades to the relief of General Zastrow.

Political career

While an excellent field commander, Granby lacked administrative skills, and he badly mismanaged the commissariat during the winter campaign of 1760–1761. His overly lenient discipline also brought criticism, and his contemporary Lord Frederick Cavendish felt it made him unsuitable for command. However, the public at large took little note of his administrative incapacities, and he was lionized both for his victories and his concern for his soldiers. A painting by Edward Penny, entitled "The Marquess of Granby Relieving a Sick Soldier" was both unconventional (in showing a general in an act of personal charity rather than victorious of the field) and vastly popular. His political support was assiduously courted, although Granby continued to try and steer a course independent of party politics. Despite his regard for Newcastle, he thought the terms of the Treaty of Paris sound and supported it. He personally trusted George Grenville, and was appointed Master-General of the Ordnance under his ministry on 1 July 1763.

Granby supported the government's issue of general warrants and prosecution of Wilkes, but in 1765 spoke against the dismissal of army officers for voting against the government in Parliament. In May 1765, Lord Halifax attempted to persuade George III to appoint Granby Commander-in-Chief of the Forces, in the hopes that his popularity would help quell the riot of the London silk weavers. The king refused, having promised the reversion of the post to the Duke of Cumberland, but obtained Granby's retention as Master-General of the Ordnance in the new Rockingham ministry, although Granby did not co-operate with the ministry and voted against the repeal of the Stamp Act.

Under the Chatham Ministry, Granby was appointed commander-in-chief on 13 August 1766. Despite rumors of his retirement, he vigorously electioneered during the 1768 season, and increased the Rutland interests seats to seven, at some expense. With the resignation of Chatham, he found himself somewhat isolated in the Grafton Ministry. While he had opposed the attempts of the government to expel Wilkes from his seat in Middlesex, his personal dislike of Wilkes overcame his principles, and he voted in favor of the expulsion on 3 February 1769 and for the seating of Henry Luttrell afterwards. It was to prove a capital political mistake. Junius had written his first attack on the ministry at the end of January, not excluding Granby, whom he condemned for servility towards the court and personal corruption. Granby's great popularity might have let him ride out the affair, but his reversal on Wilkes provided new ammunition. Worse still, a reply to Junius by his friend Sir William Draper, intended in his defense, essentially validated the charge that the hard-drinking and personable Granby was easily imposed upon by less scrupulous acquaintances.

Ultimately, it was not the attacks of Junius, but the return of Chatham that brought about his departure from politics. Granby had always respected Chatham, and through the intermediation of John Calcraft, was eventually persuaded to break with the ministry. On 9 January 1770, he announced that he had reversed himself once more on the propriety of expelling Wilkes, and shortly thereafter resigned as commander-in-chief and master-general of the ordnance, retaining only the colonelcy of the Blues.

Once out of office, Granby found himself hard-pressed by his creditors, and the loss of his official salaries had weakened his financial position. In the summer of 1770, he unsuccessfully campaigned for George Cockburne at the Scarborough by-election. He remained to recuperate from illness, but died on 18 October 1770 from a seizure precipitated by "gout in the stomach". He had been made a privy councillor in 1760, Lord Lieutenant of Derbyshire in 1764, and LL.D. of Cambridge in 1769.

Granby was a popular subject for portraits: Sir Joshua Reynolds and his studio painted him at least 16 times. In these portraits Reynolds shows him hatless and wigless, as Granby wanted to be seen — as the bald-headed general who really went at it and fought hard among private soldiers. The portrait commissioned by de Broglie, his admiring opponent at Villinghausen, shows him in the uniform of the Blues and leaning on his horse. This painting is now in the John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art, Florida, and an autograph copy is in the British Royal Collection. Another Reynolds portrait of Granby, in a similar pose but dressed as Master-General of the Ordnance and leaning on a mortar, is in the National Army Museum, London.

Granby's contemporary popularity is indicated by the number of inns and public houses which took his name and had his portrait as sign-board. Reputedly, this was in part due to his personal sponsorship of his disabled non-commissioned officers as publicans.