Robert Brownrigg

Sir Robert Brownrigg, Bt
General; Sir Robert Brownrigg, Bt; GCB
	1810 painting by Thomas Lawrence
3rd Governor of British Ceylon
	In office; 11 March 1812 – 1 February 1820
Preceded by	John Wilson; (Acting governor)
Succeeded by	Edward Barnes; (Acting governor)
10th General Officer Commanding, Ceylon
	In office; 1812–1812
Preceded by	John Wilson
Succeeded by	Alexander Cosby Jackson
Personal details
Born	8 February 1758[1]; County Wicklow, Ireland
Died	27 April 1833 (aged 75); Monmouth, Monmouthshire, Wales
Awards	Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath
Military service
Allegiance	United Kingdom
Branch/service	British Army
Rank	General
Commands	General Officer Commanding, Ceylon

General Sir Robert Brownrigg, 1st Baronet, GCB (8 February 1758 – 27 April 1833) was a British statesman and soldier. He brought the last part of Sri Lanka under British rule.

Military career

Brownrigg was commissioned as an ensign in 1775.[2] After service with the 9th (East Norfolk) Regiment of Foot, he was appointed Military Secretary to the Duke of York in 1795, and accompanied him to The Helder in Holland in 1799.[2]

In 1803 he was appointed Quartermaster-General to the Forces.[3] In 1805 he was made Colonel of the 9th (East Norfolk) Regiment and in July 1809, he joined the expedition to the Schelt.[2]

He left his post as Quartermaster-General to the Forces in 1811, and then, in 1813, he was appointed Governor of Ceylon.[2] In 1815, he acquired the Kingdom of Kandy through an agreement with the help of defecting ministers of the Kandyan King, in the central region of the island, and annexed it to the British crown. The treaty was historically known as "Kandyan Convention".[2] In recognition of his achievement, Brownrigg was created a baronet in 1816.[2]

Brownrigg fought the Great Rebellion of 1817–18 and managed to defeat that, aided by reinforcements from India.[2]

He attained the rank of full General in 1819 and left Ceylon the following year.[2]

The gilded bronze ancient Statue of Tara was reputedly found on the eastern coast of Sri Lanka. It was acquired by Brownrigg, who later donated it to the British Museum when he was living near Monmouth in 1830.[4] This account however is rejected by the authorities in Sri Lanka who believe that Brownrigg took the statue from the last King of Kandy when the British annexed Kandy.[5]

Brownrigg died near Monmouth in 1833.[2]

Family

In 1789, Brownrigg married Elizabeth Catharine Lewis and together they went on to have six sons and a daughter.[2] Then in 1810 he married Sophia Bissett.[2]

Legacy

In 2011, President Mahinda Rajapaksa of Sri Lanka initiated, at the country's Parliament, a formal revocation of Robert Brownrigg's Gazette Notification - under which participants of the Great Rebellion of 1817–18 had been condemned as “traitors” and their properties confiscated. Brownrigg's Gazette Notification was declared null and void, and all those he branded as “traitors” were declared to be National Heroes of Sri Lanka. A National Declaration was awarded on their behalf to their descendants on Republic Day of Sri Lanka, 22 May.

gollark: ```cstatic void* LOCATION_AT_WHICH_NEXT_DATA_IS_TO_BE_STORED = 0;void* malloc(long unsigned int size) { void* laser_bees = LOCATION_AT_WHICH_NEXT_DATA_IS_TO_BE_STORED; LOCATION_AT_WHICH_NEXT_DATA_IS_TO_BE_STORED = (void*)((long unsigned int)LOCATION_AT_WHICH_NEXT_DATA_IS_TO_BE_STORED + size); return (void*)laser_bees;}```

gollark: *Especially*, say, network drivers and webapps.

gollark: Your application needs to not randomly break or corrupt everything or overwrite things if it receives unexpectedly large input.

gollark: Haskell programmers, mostly.

gollark: It's said that "if it compiles, it works". Though maybe that wasn't about C.

References

D'Oyly, Sir John (1938). Letters to Ceylon, 1814-1824. W. Heffer & Sons, Limited. p. 118. Retrieved 17 June 2019.
Powell, Geoffrey S. "Brownrigg, Sir Robert, first baronet (1759–1833)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/3718. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
"No. 15566". The London Gazette. 12 March 1803. p. 266.
figure, Collection Online, British Museum, retrieved 9 December 2013
Greenfield, Jeanette (1996). The return of cultural treasures (2nd ed.). [Cambridge]: Cambridge university press. p. 132. ISBN 0521477468.

Sources

Stephens, Henry Morse (1886). "Brownrigg, Robert" . In Stephen, Leslie (ed.). Dictionary of National Biography. 7. London: Smith, Elder & Co.

Military offices
Preceded by New Post	Military Secretary 1795–1803	Succeeded by William Clinton
Preceded by Sir David Dundas	Quartermaster-General to the Forces 1803–1811	Succeeded by Sir James Gordon
Preceded by John Wilson	General Officer Commanding, Ceylon 1812	Succeeded by Alexander Cosby Jackson
Preceded by Peter Hunter	Colonel of the 9th (East Norfolk) Regiment of Foot 1804–1833	Succeeded by Sir John Cameron
Government offices
Preceded by John Wilson acting governor	Governor of Ceylon 1812–1820	Succeeded by Edward Barnes acting governor
Baronetage of the United Kingdom
Preceded by New creation	Baronet 1816–1833	Succeeded by Robert Brownrigg

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[1] D'Oyly, Sir John (1938). Letters to Ceylon, 1814-1824. W. Heffer & Sons, Limited. p. 118. Retrieved 17 June 2019.

[odnb-2] Powell, Geoffrey S. "Brownrigg, Sir Robert, first baronet (1759–1833)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/3718. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)

[3] "No. 15566". The London Gazette. 12 March 1803. p. 266.

[bm-4] ure, Collection Online, British Museum, retrieved 9 December 2013

[greenfield-5] Greenfield, Jeanette (1996). The return of cultural treasures (2nd ed.). [Cambridge]: Cambridge university press. p. 132. ISBN 0521477468.

←Governors of British Ceylon→
Military Governors	Agnew Stuart Doyle Bonnevaux de Meuron Andrews*
Governors	North Maitland Wilson Brownrigg Barnes Paget Campbell Barnes Wilson Wilmot-Horton Stewart-Mackenzie Campbell Emerson Tennent Torrington MacCarthy Anderson MacCarthy Ward Lockyer Wilkinson MacCarthy O'Brien Robinson Robinson Irving Gregory Longden Douglas Hamilton-Gordon Havelock Walker Ridgeway im Thurn Blake Clifford McCallum Stubbs Chalmers Stubbs Anderson Stubbs Manning Clementi Alexander Clifford Fletcher Stanley Bourdillon Thomson Tyrrell Stubbs Wedderburn Caldecott Moore**
Acting, Resident and Superintendent, became Governor-General of Ceylon*