General A general officer is an officer of high rank in the armies, and in some nations' air forces, space forces, and marines or naval infantry. In some usages the term "general officer" refers to a rank above colonel."general, adj. and n.". O ...

Ulysses de Burgh, 2nd Baron Downes (15 August 1788 – 26 July 1864), was an Irish soldier and

Tory A Tory () is a person who holds a political philosophy known as Toryism, based on a British version of traditionalism and conservatism, which upholds the supremacy of social order as it has evolved in the English culture throughout history. The ...

politician. A General in the

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 Gurkha ...

, he served as

Surveyor-General of the Ordnance The Surveyor-General of the Ordnance was a subordinate of the Master-General of the Ordnance and a member of the Board of Ordnance, a British government body, from its constitution in 1597. Appointments to the post were made by the crown under L ...

under

Lord Liverpool Robert Banks Jenkinson, 2nd Earl of Liverpool, (7 June 1770 – 4 December 1828) was a British Tory statesman who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1812 to 1827. He held many important cabinet offices such as Foreign Secret ...

(1820–27) and, after succeeding a cousin as second Baron Downes (1826), he was an Irish Representative Peer in the

House of Lords The House of Lords, also known as the House of Peers, is the upper house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Membership is by appointment, heredity or official function. Like the House of Commons, it meets in the Palace of Westminst ...

(1833–64).

Background

Born Ulysses Burgh, he was the son of Thomas Burgh and Anne, daughter of David Aigion. His great-grandfather was

Ulysses Burgh Ulysses Burgh (; ; 1632–1692) was an Irish Anglican cleric who was Dean of Emly (1685–1692) and Bishop of Ardagh (1692).“A New History of Ireland” Moody,T.W; Martin,F.X; Byrne,F.J;Cosgrove,A: Oxford, OUP, 1976 Life Burgh was born ...

Bishop of Ardagh The Bishop of Ardagh was a separate episcopal title which took its name after the village of Ardagh, County Longford in the Republic of Ireland. It was used by the Roman Catholic Church until 1756, and intermittently by the Church of Ireland u ...

. In 1848 he assumed by Royal licence the surname of de Burgh in lieu of simply Burgh.thepeerage.com Ulysses Burgh, 2nd Baron Downes of Aghanville
/ref> His grandfather Thomas Burgh was one of the foremost Irish architects of his time, who designed many notable buildings, including

Trinity College Library The Library of Trinity College Dublin () serves Trinity College and the University of Dublin. It is a legal deposit or "copyright library", under which, publishers in Ireland must deposit a copy of all their publications there, without charge ...

and

Dr Steevens' Hospital Dr Steevens' Hospital (also called Dr Steevens's Hospital) ( ga, Ospidéal an Dr Steevens), one of Ireland's most distinguished eighteenth-century medical establishments, was located at Kilmainham in Dublin Ireland. It was founded under the terms ...

. His father was comptroller-general and commissioner of the revenue of Ireland, and second cousin of William Downes, who was

Lord Chief Justice of Ireland The Court of King's Bench (or Court of Queen's Bench during the reign of a Queen) was one of the senior courts of common law in Ireland. It was a mirror of the Court of King's Bench in England. The Lord Chief Justice was the most senior judge ...

from 1803 to 1822; and his two sisters had married respectively the

Chancellor of the Irish Exchequer The Chancellor of the Exchequer of Ireland was the head of the Exchequer of Ireland and a member of the Dublin Castle administration under the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland in the Kingdom of Ireland. In early times the title was sometimes given as Ch ...

and the

Chief Baron of the Irish Exchequer The Chief Baron of the Irish Exchequer was the Baron (judge) who presided over the Court of Exchequer (Ireland). The Irish Court of Exchequer was a mirror of the equivalent court in England and was one of the four courts which sat in the buildin ...

. Ulysses Burgh was born in Dublin on 15 August 1788. He entered the

, and was promoted by family influence. He was gazetted ensign in the

54th Regiment of Foot The 54th Regiment of Foot was an infantry regiment of the British Army, raised in 1755. Under the Childers Reforms it amalgamated with the 39th (Dorsetshire) Regiment of Foot to form the Dorsetshire Regiment in 1881. History Early history The ...

on 31 March 1804, and was promoted

lieutenant A lieutenant ( , ; abbreviated Lt., Lt, LT, Lieut and similar) is a commissioned officer rank in the armed forces of many nations. The meaning of lieutenant differs in different militaries (see comparative military ranks), but it is often ...

on 12 November 1804, and

captain Captain is a title, an appellative for the commanding officer of a military unit; the supreme leader of a navy ship, merchant ship, aeroplane, spacecraft, or other vessel; or the commander of a port, fire or police department, election precinct, e ...

on 4 September 1806. He was employed in ordinary garrison duty with his regiment at

Gibraltar ) , anthem = " God Save the King" , song = "Gibraltar Anthem" , image_map = Gibraltar location in Europe.svg , map_alt = Location of Gibraltar in Europe , map_caption = United Kingdom shown in pale green , mapsize = , image_map2 = Gibr ...

and in the West Indies till 1808, when he exchanged into the 92nd and accompanied Sir John Cradock to Portugal as aide-de-camp.

Peninsular War

When

Sir Arthur Wellesley Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington, (1 May 1769 – 14 September 1852) was an Anglo-Irish soldier and Tory statesman who was one of the leading military and political figures of 19th-century Britain, serving twice as prime minister of ...

succeeded Cradock, he in his turn took Burgh, whose father was a close friend, as an aide-de-camp. Burgh was present at 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 ...

, where he was slightly wounded. He brought home the despatch announcing the victory at the

battle of Busaco The Battle of Buçaco () or Bussaco, fought on 27 September 1810 during the Peninsular War in the Portuguese mountain range of Serra do Buçaco, resulted in the defeat of French forces by Lord Wellington's Anglo-Portuguese Army. Having ...

on 29 September 1810, was promoted major for the news, and was back again in Portugal by January 1811. He was then present at the battle of Fuentes d'Onor, at the combat of El Bodon, at the storming of

Ciudad Rodrigo Ciudad Rodrigo () is a small cathedral city in the province of Salamanca, in western Spain, with a population in 2016 of 12,896. It is also the seat of a judicial district. The site of Ciudad Rodrigo, perched atop a rocky rise on the right ban ...

and

Badajoz Badajoz (; formerly written ''Badajos'' in English) is the capital of the Province of Badajoz in the autonomous community of Extremadura, Spain. It is situated close to the Portuguese border, on the left bank of the river Guadiana. The populati ...

, and the

battle of Salamanca The Battle of Salamanca (in French and Spanish known as the Battle of Arapiles) on 22July 1812 was a battle in which an Anglo-Portuguese army under the Earl of Wellington defeated Marshal Auguste Marmont's French forces at Arapiles, so ...

, and again took home the news of Wellington's entry into

Madrid Madrid ( , ) is the capital and most populous city of Spain. The city has almost 3.4 million inhabitants and a metropolitan area population of approximately 6.7 million. It is the second-largest city in the European Union (EU), and ...

. He was promoted lieutenant-colonel on 25 September 1812. He returned to Spain, and was present at the

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 ...

and the

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 ...

. He was present at the storming of San Sebastián, at the

battle of the Nivelle The Battle of Nivelle (10 November 1813) took place in front of the river Nivelle near the end of the Peninsular War (1808–1814). After the Allied siege of San Sebastian, Wellington's 80,000 British, Portuguese and Spanish troops (20, ...

, where his horse was killed under him; at the

battle of the Nive The Battles of the Nive (9–13 December 1813) were fought towards the end of the Peninsular War. Arthur Wellesley, Marquess of Wellington's Anglo-Portuguese and Spanish army defeated Marshal Nicolas Soult's French army on French soil ...

, and the battle of Toulouse, where he was again wounded. At the end of the war in 1814 Burgh was made KCB and KTS, and received a company in the

Grenadier guards "Shamed be whoever thinks ill of it." , colors = , colors_label = , march = Slow: " Scipio" , mascot = , equipment = , equipment ...

Political career

Burgh was returned to parliament for Carlow County in 1818, a seat he held until 1826, and then represented

Queenborough Queenborough is a town on the Isle of Sheppey in the Swale borough of Kent in South East England. Queenborough is south of Sheerness. It grew as a port near the Thames Estuary at the westward entrance to the Swale where it joins the R ...

between 1826 and 1830. He held office under

between 1820 and 1827. In 1826 he succeeded his second cousin

William Downes, 1st Baron Downes William Downes, 1st Baron Downes PC (1751 – 3 March 1826) was one of the leading Irish judges of his time, who held office as Lord Chief Justice of Ireland. Family Downes was the second son of Robert Downes (1708-1754) of Donnybrook Castl ...

, who had no children, as second Baron Downes according to a special remainder in the

letters patent Letters patent ( la, litterae patentes) ( always in the plural) are a type of legal instrument in the form of a published written order issued by a monarch, president or other head of state, generally granting an office, right, monopoly, tit ...

. As this was an

Irish peerage The Peerage of Ireland consists of those titles of nobility created by the English monarchs in their capacity as Lord or King of Ireland, or later by monarchs of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. It is one of the five di ...

it did not entitle him to an automatic seat in the

and he was able to remain a member of the

House of Commons The House of Commons is the name for the elected lower house of the bicameral parliaments of the United Kingdom and Canada. In both of these countries, the Commons holds much more legislative power than the nominally upper house of parliament. T ...

. However, in 1833 he was elected an Irish Representative Peer and entered the House of Lords. In 1860 he was appointed a Knight Grand Cross of the

Order 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) a ...

. On the retirement of the Duke of Wellington from political life, Lord Downes also retired and occupied himself with the life of a country gentleman. He became in due course major-general on 10 January 1837, lieutenant-general on 9 November 1846, colonel of the 54th foot 1845–50, colonel of the 29th regiment on 15 August 1850, full general on 20 June 1854, and was made G.C.B. in 1869. Downes died at Bert House, Athy,

County Kildare County Kildare ( ga, Contae Chill Dara) is a county in Ireland. It is in the province of Leinster and is part of the Eastern and Midland Region. It is named after the town of Kildare. Kildare County Council is the local authority for the count ...

, on 26 July 1863.

Family

Lord Downes was twice married. He married firstly Maria, daughter of Walter Bagenal, in 1815. They had two daughters: *Charlotte who married James Colborne, 2nd Baron Seaton *Anne who married John Scott, 3rd

Earl of Clonmell Earl of Clonmell, in the County of Tipperary, was a title in the Peerage of Ireland. It was created in 1793 for John Scott, 1st Viscount Clonmell, Lord Chief Justice of the King's Bench for Ireland. He had already been created Baron Earlsfort, of ...

. After her death in August 1842, he married secondly Christopheria, daughter of James Buchanan and widow of

John Willis Fleming John Willis Fleming (28 November 1781 – 4 September 1844) was an English landed proprietor and Conservative Member of Parliament. He was born at Bletchley in Buckinghamshire, the son of Rev. Thomas Willis and Catherine Hyde. He was educa ...

of North Stoneham Park, in 1846. There were no children from this marriage. She died in October 1860. Lord Downes died in July 1864, aged 75. The barony became extinct on his death as he had no sons.

References

;Attribution

External links

* , - , - {{DEFAULTSORT:Downes, Ulysses Burgh, 2nd Baron 1788 births 1864 deaths Barons in the Peerage of Ireland Irish representative peers Knights Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath Burgh, Ulysses Members of the Parliament of the United Kingdom for English constituencies Tory MPs (pre-1834) Burgh, Ulysses Burgh, Ulysses UK MPs 1826–1830 UK MPs who inherited peerages British Army generals British Army personnel of the Napoleonic Wars 29th Regiment of Foot officers Military personnel from Dublin (city) Grenadier Guards officers