John Manners, Marquess of Granby

Lieutenant-General John Manners, Marquess of Granby (2 January 1721 – 18 October 1770) was a British Army officer and politician. The eldest son of John Manners, 3rd Duke of Rutland, as he did not outlive his father and inherit the dukedom, Manners was known by his father's subsidiary title, Marquess of Granby. He served in the military during the Jacobite rising of 1745 and the Seven Years' War, being subsequently rewarded with the post of Commander-in-Chief of the Forces. Manners was popular with the troops who served under him and many British pubs are still named after him today.

Early life

John Manners was born in Kelham, Nottinghamshire on 2 January 1721. He was the eldest son of John Manners, 3rd Duke of Rutland and his wife, Lady Bridget Manners (née Sutton). Manners was educated at Eton College, graduating from there in 1732 before attending Trinity College, Cambridge, where he graduated in 1738. In 1740, Manners travelled through Europe as part of the Grand Tour, visiting Italy and the Ottoman Empire before returning in 1742.

Political career

In 1741, he was elected as member of parliament for the pocket borough of Grantham. Though the municipality was a market town, its electorate was relatively small and the affairs of Grantham's council was during the Georgian era sponsored alternately by the Manners, Cust, Thorold and Heathcote families whose family seats were all nearby.

Military career

The Jacobite rising

In 1745, Manners assisted his father in establishing a volunteer regiment in Rutland to assist in suppressing the Jacobite rising of 1745. Although the regiment was limited to garrison duty at Newcastle upon Tyne, it was the only one of its type that raised the full quota of 780 recruits. Manners received a commission as colonel of the regiment.

The king came to view him more favourably as he defended the Newcastle ministry in the House of Commons. He was promoted major-general on 18 March 1755, and was at last made Colonel of the Blues on 27 May 1758. On 21 August, Granby arrived at Munster as second in command to Lord George Sackville, as the aged Duke of Marlborough had recently died. The British cavalry were divided into Heavy and Light cavalry and drilled under the strong influence of George Elliot and Granby himself. Accredited as the greatest colonel since the Earl of Oxford, Granby was both courageous and competent as a soldier. He was then appointed overall commander of the expedition, replacing Sackville on 21 August 1759. He became Lieutenant-General of the Ordnance on 15 September 1759.

He was one of the first who understood the importance of welfare and morale for the troops. The character of British soldiering improved and, properly led, the army was unbeatable in war. Nearly all the portraits show him mounting a horse or helping the wounded. On 7 June 1760 he wrote to Viscount Barrington, Secretary at War, receiving a reply ten days later making enquiries as to the Hospital Board accommodation for his wounded men.

Seven Years’ War

Granby was sent to Paderborn in command of a cavalry brigade. He was promoted to lieutenant general in 1759 and later that year fought at the Battle of Minden as commander of the second line of cavalry under Duke Ferdinand of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel.

He sought to steer a path independent of party politics but supported the Treaty of Paris. He trusted George Grenville who promptly appointed him Master-General of the Ordnance under his ministry on 14 May 1763. Granby was also made Lord Lieutenant of Derbyshire on 21 February 1764.

Master-General of the Ordnance

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. His friend and associate Levett Blackborne, a Lincoln's Inn barrister and Manners family adviser who frequently resided at Belvoir, was away at the time, visiting a family relation of Manners' and received the disturbing news on his return to Belvoir. He wrote to George Vernon at Clontarf on 12 February 1771, bemoaning Granby's proclivities that had brought him to ruin:

"You are no stranger to the spirit of procrastination. The noblest mind that ever existed, the amiable man whom we lament was not free from it. This temper plunged him into difficulties, debts and distresses; and I have lived to see the first heir of a subject in the Kingdom have a miserable shifting life, attended by a levee of duns, and at last die broken-hearted."

He is probably best known today for having a great number of English pubs named after him—due, it is said, to his practice of setting up old soldiers of his regiment as publicans when they were too old to serve any longer. By 1761, at forty years of age, he had already won the title of "the Father of the British Army."

Family

He had two illegitimate children by a mistress Anne Mompesson:

George Manners (1747–1772)
Anne Manners (1750-1822) married John Manners-Sutton, her first cousin

Five months after the birth of his illegitimate daughter Anne in Lincoln he married Lady Frances Seymour (1728–1761), daughter of Charles Seymour, 6th Duke of Somerset and Lady Charlotte Finch (1693–1773), daughter of 7th Earl of Winchilsea, on 3 September 1750. According to Horace Walpole, "She has above a hundred and thirty thousand pounds. The Duke of Rutland will take none of it, but gives at present six thousand a-year." They had six children:

John Manners, Lord Roos (29 August 1751 –2 June 1760, London)
Lady Frances Manners (1753 –15 October 1792)
Charles Manners, 4th Duke of Rutland (1754 –1787)
Lady Catherine Manners, died young
Lord Robert Manners (1758 –1782)
Lady Caroline Manners, died young