# Dictionary of National Biography, 1901 supplement/Lambert, John (1772-1847)

​LAMBERT, Sir JOHN (1772–1847), general, was the son of Captain Robert Alexander Lambert, R.N. (second son of Sir John Lambert, second baronet), by Catherine, daughter of Thomas Byndloss of Jamaica. He was commissioned as ensign in the 1st foot guards on 27 Jan. 1791, and promoted lieutenant and captain on 9 Oct. 1793. He served at the sieges of Valenciennes and Dunkirk, and was in the action of Lincelles in 1793. He was adjutant of ​the third battalion in the campaign of 1794, served with it in Ireland during the rebellion of 1798, and in the expedition to Holland in 1799. He was promoted captain and lieutenant-colonel on 14 May 1801. He served in Portugal and Spain in 1808, and was present at Corunna, and he commanded the light companies of the guards in the Walcheren expedition of 1809. He became colonel in the army on 25 July 1810, and embarked for Cadiz in command of the third battalion on 30 May 1811. In January 1812 he was sent to Carthagena with two battalions. He remained there three months, and in October he joined Wellington's army at Salamanca.
On 4 June 1813 he was promoted major-general, and was appointed to a brigade of the sixth division. He commanded it at the battles of the Nivelle, Nive, Orthes, and Toulouse, and was specially mentioned in despatches for the Nivelle and Toulouse (13 Nov. 1813, 12 April 1814). He received the thanks of parliament and the gold cross, and was made K.C.B. on 2 Jan. 1815. Having been sent to America, he joined the army under Sir Edward Pakenham [q. v.] below New Orleans on 6 Jan. 1815, with the 7th and 43rd regiments. In the unsuccessful attack on the American intrenchments, made two days afterwards, he commanded the reserve. Pakenham being killed, and General Gibbs mortally wounded, the chief command devolved on Lambert. He decided not to renew the attack, withdrew the troops which had been sent across the Mississippi, and retreating on the 18th, re-embarked his force on the 27th (James, ii. 543-7; Porter, i. 363). It proceeded to the bay of Mobile, where Fort Bowyer was taken on 12 Feb., and next day news arrived that peace had been signed.
Lambert returned to Europe in time to command the tenth brigade of British infantry at Waterloo. The brigade joined the army from Ghent only on the morning of 18 June, and was at first posted in reserve at Mont St. Jean. After 3 p.m. it was moved up to the front line to support the fifth (Picton's) division, and one of its regiments, the 27th, which had to be kept in square near La Haye Sainte, lost two-thirds of its men, a heavier loss than that of any other regiment (Wellington Despatches, Supplementary, x. 537; Waterloo Letters, pp. 391-402). Lambert was mentioned in Wellington's despatch, and received the thanks of parliament, the order of St. Vladimir of Russia (3rd class), and that of Maximilian Joseph of Bavaria (commander). He commanded the eighth infantry brigade in the army of occupation in France.
He was promoted lieutenant-general on 27 May 1825, and general on 23 Nov. 1841. He was given the colonelcy of the 10th regiment on 18 Jan. 1824, and the G.C.B. on 19 July 1838. He died at Weston House, Thames Ditton, on 14 Sept. 1847, aged 75. In 1816 he married a daughter of John Morant of Brocklehurst Park, New Forest.
[Gent. Mag. 1847, ii. 539; Burke's Peerage; Hamilton's Grenadier Guards; Royal Military Calendar, iii. 307; Wellington's Despatches; Siborne's Waterloo Letters; James's Military Occurrences of the War between Great Britain and America, ii. 370-94, 543-7; Porter's Royal Engineers.]
E. M. L.