# George Maddison (British Army Officer)

Lieutenant-colonel George Maddison was an British army officer who served as the Lieutenant governor of Saint Vincent from 1763-1764. Maddison served as the commander of the King's Own Royal Regiment. Maddison led his regiment in several battles of the revolution, including Concord and Bunker Hill.
Maddison is most known for his raid, during the Powder Alarm of '75, where he led 260 regulars to remove 250 sub-barrels of gunpower from the patriots. Maddison is known to have survived an assassination plot from the sailor Samuel Dyer in October, 1774.

## Early career

Maddison was born on August 29, 1729 in Ketton, Rutland Unitary Authority, Rutland, England, to John Maddison, and his wife, Katherine Whichcote.
Maddison was commissioned into the British army, aged around 16, joining the 11th Regiment of Foot. Maddison presumably served with his regiment abroad during the War of the Austrian Succession, and fighting at the Battles of Fontenoy and Rocoux
Maddison was promoted to captain on January 20st, 1750. The regiment embarked for the continent in spring 1760 for service in the Seven Years' War; it fought at the Battle of Warburg in July 1760, the Battle of Kloster Kampen in October 1760 and the Battle of Villinghausen in July 1761 Maddison was promoted again to major on may 9th, 1762. Maddison and his regiment fought at the Battle of Wilhelmsthal in June 1762 and the inconclusive Iberian campaign.
On his return to England, on April 20th, 1763, Maddison is promoted yet again to lieutenant-colonel of the the 4th (King's Own) Regiment of Foot, currently in the west indies. Maddison was further appointed Lieutenant governor of Saint Vincent. Several islands, including Saint Vincent had recently been won during the recent war, and Brittan established the Windward Islands, with the Governor of Barbados becoming the Governor of Grenada and the Grenadines, St. Vincent and Tobago, with each island having its own lieutenant-governor. This arrangement was plagued with the difficulty of west to east communication among the islands in the days of sail.
In the spring of 1764, Maddison's tenure of Lieutenant governor ended, and both he and his regiment returned to England, arriving in July, and commenced recruiting its diminished numbers. In 1768, the King's Own proceeded to Scotland, where they were stationed during the four succeeding years, but returned to England in the spring of 1773, and remained on home service until the following year, when they were again ordered to hold themselves in readiness to proceed abroad.

## North America

Maddison and the King's Own, were one of the corps selected to proceed to North America, embarked for that service on the 17th of April, 1774. After landing at Boston the King's Own were encamped for some time near the town; and the violent revolutionary spirit which many of the colonists displayed, occasioned a detachment of the regiment to be sent during the winter to Marshfield, for the protection of a number of the friends of the government in that town and neighborhood.
Amidst growing tension between Great Britain and it's American colonies , Sheriff David Phips was dispatched on August 31st, 1774 to William Brattle under orders of governor Thomas Gage to remove the provincial powder; Brattle turned the key to the powder house over to Phips. Gage also gave orders to ready a force of troops for action the next day, something that did not go unnoticed by the local population. At some point that day, General Gage, whether by his intent, accident, or theft by a messenger, lost possession of the August 27 letter from William Brattle; the widely held story is that it was dropped. News of its content spread rapidly, and many considered it to be a warning to Gage to remove the provincial powder before Patriots could seize it.
Early in the morning of September 1, a force of roughly 260 British regulars from the 4th Regiment, under the command of Maddison, was rowed in secrecy up the Mystic River from Boston to a landing point near Winter Hill in modern-day Somerville. From there they marched about a mile (1.6 km) to the Powder House, a gunpowder magazine that held the largest supply of gunpowder in Massachusetts. Phips gave the King's Troops the keys to the building, and after sunrise, they removed all of the gunpowder. Most of the regulars then returned to Boston the way they had come, but a small contingent marched to Cambridge, removed two field pieces, and took them to Boston by foot over the Great Bridge and up Boston Neck. The field pieces and powder were then taken from Boston to the British stronghold on Castle Island, then known as Castle William (renamed Fort Independence in 1779).
In the aftermath of the raid, false rumors flew throughout the day across the countryside about the British troop movements. The regulars were marching; provincial powder had been seized; war was at hand; people had been killed; Boston was being bombarded by His Majesty's warships. The alarm spread as far as Connecticut. From all over the region, people took up arms and began streaming toward Boston. On September 2, several thousand men bent on violence gathered in Cambridge, where they forced several notable Loyalists, including Brattle, to flee to Boston and the protection of the military. Sheriff Phips was forced, in writing, to dissociate himself from any and all government actions. Eventually facts caught up with the rumors, and militia units (some of which were still heading toward Boston) returned home.
On October 10, 1774, the brigantine Charlotte arrived at Newport, Rhode Island, from London. On board was a sailor named Samuel Dyer, and he told a shocking story, soon reported in the local newspapers. Three months earlier, on July 6, soldiers of the 4th or King’s Own Regiment had grabbed him off the streets of Boston and kept him “confin’d in irons” in their camp. And that was just the start of his harrowing tale.
According to Samuel Dyer, the 4th Regiment’s commander, Lt.-Col. George Maddison, had asked Dyer “who gave him orders to destroy the Tea” tossed into the harbor the previous December. Dyer insisted no one had told him to do that. Maddison replied, “he was a lyar, it was King Hancock, and the damn’d Sons of Liberty”! The officer told Dyer that “he should be hung like a dog” in London, and advised him “to prepare a good story” for the royal governor, Gen. Thomas Gage. Then the sailor, still in chains, was loaded onto Adm. John Montagu’s flagship, the Captain, to await Gage.
Dyer reportedly came to Boston to “take Evidences” and start a “prosecution” against Lieutenant Colonel Maddison. But he could not file a lawsuit for damages because the Patriots had shut down all the provincial courts as a protest against Parliament’s Massachusetts Government Act. According to Andrews, Dyer “declar’d since he came home, that if he could not have public satisfaction for his extraordinary treatment, he would take it personally.” The aggrieved sailor decided to act on his own.
About noon on Tuesday, October 18, Dyer spotted two British army officers “returning together from the Neck” at the southern tip of Boston, where General Gage had ordered new fortifications and artillery. Those military men were Lt. Col. Samuel Cleaveland, the head of the Royal Artillery in North America, and the army’s chief engineer, Capt. John Montresor. Dyer came up and asked Capt. Montresor “if his name was Colonel Maddison.” Montresor’s Royal Engineers uniform in bright red cloth with blue facings was similar to the coats of officers in the 4th Regiment. However, given that the sailor had repeatedly and loudly identified Maddison as the officer who had interrogated him at length three months before, he should have been able to recognize that man. They told Dyer that neither of them was Maddison and sent him on his way.
They told Dyer that neither of them was Maddison and sent him on his way. Dyer would nonetheless attack both of the officers. Dyer “drew out a Pistol and directed it at the Colonel, but it missed Fire.” Captain Montresor pulled out “a Kind of half Dirk” and moved toward Dyer. The sailor pulled out another pistol and pointed it at the engineer’s head “at about three Yards Distance.” But that gun “flashed in the Pan.” Montresor ducked behind a cart. Doubly frustrated, Dyer turned back to Colonel Cleaveland and “made two or three Strokes at him” with his own sword.
Despite the congress’s repudiation, army officers took Dyer to be typical of the New England resistance, probably even directed by its leaders. Capt. William Evelyn of the 4th Regiment wrote home that the sailor was one of “their agents,” not just a madman acting on his own. Later Captain Montresor would perceive a wider conspiracy: “This man was sent off by the Sheriffs of London, Messrs. Lee and Sayre, to murther Lt.-Col. Maddison of the 4th. Regiment.”
In April, 1775, about 700 British Army regulars in Boston, under Lieutenant Colonel Francis Smith, were given secret orders to capture and destroy Colonial military supplies reportedly stored by the Massachusetts militia at Concord. Through effective intelligence gathering, Patriot leaders had received word weeks before the expedition that their supplies might be at risk and had moved most of them to other locations. On the night before the battle, warning of the British expedition had been rapidly sent from Boston to militias in the area by several riders, including Paul Revere and Samuel Prescott, with information about British plans. The initial mode of the Army's arrival by water was signaled from the Old North Church in Boston to Charlestown using lanterns to communicate "one if by land, two if by sea".
The first shots were fired just as the sun was rising at Lexington. Eight militiamen were killed, including Ensign Robert Munroe, their third in command. The British suffered only one casualty. The militia was outnumbered and fell back, and the regulars proceeded on to Concord, where they broke apart into companies to search for the supplies. At the North Bridge in Concord, approximately 400 militiamen engaged 100 regulars from three companies of the King's troops at about 11:00 am, resulting in casualties on both sides. The outnumbered regulars fell back from the bridge and rejoined the main body of British forces in Concord.
The British forces began their return march to Boston after completing their search for military supplies, and more militiamen continued to arrive from the neighboring towns. Gunfire erupted again between the two sides and continued throughout the day as the regulars marched back towards Boston. Upon returning to Lexington, Lt. Col. Smith's expedition was rescued by reinforcements under Brigadier General Earl Percy. The combined force of about 1,700 men marched back to Boston under heavy fire in a tactical withdrawal and eventually reached the safety of Charlestown. The accumulated militias then blockaded the narrow land accesses to Charlestown and Boston, starting the siege of Boston.
Maddison remained in command of his regiment during the siege, and during the costly victory at the Battle of Bunker Hill. By November, he was replaced as commander of his regiment by lieutenant-colonel Harry Blunt. He remained in the city, and left when the British evacuated the city on March 17th, 1776, retiring first to Halifax, and then to England.

## Death

He died on January 10th, 1806, aged 76 in Dunstable, Central Bedfordshire Unitary Authority, Bedfordshire, England, having outlived his wife by 15 years.

## Personal life

Maddison married Mary Baugh, the daughter of Captain Lancelot Baugh on October 11th, 1757, in Portsmouth, England. She died in 1791. They had 3 children.
1) Colonel George Maddison (1762-) 2) Colonel John Thomas Maddison (1759-1837) 3) Katharine Blacker (Maddison) (1769-1823)