William Beresford, 1st Viscount Beresford

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William Carr Beresford, 1st Viscount Beresford GCB GCH (October 2, 1768 – January 8, 1854), British soldier and politician.

A general in the British Army and a marshal in the Portuguese army, who fought with the Duke of Wellington in the Peninsular War and in 1828 held the office of master-general of the ordnance in Wellington's first ministry.

He was sent across the South Atlantic to invade the Plata region, with a a smaller British force of 1,500 men, departing on 14 April 1806. In the British invasions of the Río de la Plata, when the British Crown attempted to take control of Buenos Aires and thus, over the Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata, he was defeated and had to surrender.

The most notable action in which Beresford held independent command, during the Peninsular War, occurred in 1811 when a combined Anglo-Portuguese and Spanish army under his command as a Portuguese field-marshal, intercepted a French army commanded by Marshal Nicolas Soult who had been ordered by Marshal Auguste Marmont to move to protect Badajoz. After the bloody Battle of Albuera the French were forced to retreat.

He was the last titular Governor of Jersey; since his death the Crown has been represented in Jersey by the Lieutenant Governor of Jersey.

[edit] References

ISBN 0-9522930-7-2, The Fatal Hill: The Allied Campaign under Beresford in Southern Spain in 1811, Mark Sunderland, Thompson Publishing, London 2002, Long Review

[edit] External links

1911 Encyclopedia

Military Offices
Preceded by Sir Hildebrand Oakes, Bt	Lieutenant-General of the Ordnance 1823–1824	Succeeded by Sir George Murray
Preceded by The Marquess of Anglesey	Master-General of the Ordnance 1828–1830	Succeeded by Sir James Kempt
Peerage of the United Kingdom
Preceded by New Creation	Viscount Beresford 1823–1854	Succeeded by Extinct