James Shaw-Kennedy
Encyclopedia
General Sir James Shaw Kennedy KCB
(13 October 1788–30 May 1865) was a British
soldier and military writer.
, Kirkcudbrightshire
. He was educated at Ayr Academy. He was commissioned into the 43rd (Monmouthshire) Light Infantry in 1805 joining the regiment at Hythe, Kent where it was training under Sir John Moore. He first saw service in the Copenhagen Expedition
of 1807 as a lieutenant, and under Sir David Baird
took part in the Corunna Campaign
. In the retreat from Corunna, led by Sir John Moore, Shaw and the 43rd fought with the rearguard to the army. On his return to England he suffered from a severe fever from which he never fully recovered. In May 1809, Shaw returned to the Peninsula with the 43rd and took part in the 250-mile march from Lisbon to Talavera where he became adjutant of his now famous regiment at the Battle of Talavera.
's aide-de-camp
during 1809 and 1810, Shaw was on the staff of the Light Division at the Coa and the Agueda, and, with William Campbell, prepared and edited the Standing Orders of the Light Division (printed in Home's Précis of Modern Tactics, pp. 257–277). He was wounded at Almeida
in 1810, but rejoined Craufurd at the end of 1811 and was with his chief at the siege of Ciudad Rodrigo in January 1812. At the great assault of January 19, Shaw carried his general, mortally wounded, from the crest of the glacis
and later conveyed Wellington's summons to surrender to the French governor. At Badajoz
, now once more with the 43rd, he displayed, at the lesser breach, a gallantry which furnished his brother officer William Napier
with the theme of one of his most glorious descriptive passages.
At the siege and the Battle of Salamanca
, in the retreat from Burgos
, Shaw, still a subaltern, distinguished himself and in July 1812 was promoted to Captain. At the end of the year he had to return to England due to ill health. In April 1813, Shaw joined the senior department of the Royal Military College, Sandhurst. He returned to active service and at the Battle of Waterloo
on 18 June 1815 he was assistant quartermaster-general with the 3rd division of Charles Alten
. The 3rd division, during the late afternoon of 18 June, had to defend its position against repeated French cavalry charges and Shaw was struck in the side and out of action for a period. During the battle one of his horse's was killed and another wounded under him. Shaw, by his reconnoitring skill and tactical judgment, was of the greatest assistance to Alten and to Wellington, who promoted him Brevet Major in July, and Brevet Lieutenant-Colonel in January 1819.
During the occupation of France by the allied army, Shaw was commandant of Calais
from 1815 to 1818, and on his return to England, was employed as a staff officer in the north. In this capacity, he was called upon to deal with the Manchester riots of 1819.
(RIC) from 1836 to 1838 during which time he raised and organized a force of 8000 men. Afterwards, Shaw led a retired country life for ten years.
movements, Shaw Kennedy as he was then known (see Family below) was called upon to command at Liverpool
, and soon afterwards was offered successively a command in Ireland
and the governorship of Mauritius
. Ill-health compelled him to decline these. A little later he briefly took up an offer of the Scottish command, but was again forced to retire due to ill health. In 1852, Sir William Napier, referring to Shaw Kennedy, said that, "He is, perhaps, with the exception of Lord Seaton, the very ablest officer in the service".
of the 47th Foot. He was promoted to full general in August 1862. Shaw Kennedy was appointed C.B. in July 1838 and K.C.B. in 1863. He also held the military general service medal, often known as the Peninsular silver medal, with three clasps and the Waterloo medal.
Shaw Kennedy died in Bath, Somerset on 30 May 1865 following a long standing liver complaint.
They had three children:
Wilhelmina Shaw, who died young;
Henrietta Shaw Kennedy, who married Primrose W. Kennedy of Drumellan;
John Shaw Kennedy (d 1905), laird of Kirkmichael
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 mediæval ceremony for creating a knight, which involved bathing as one of its elements. The knights so created were known as Knights of the Bath...
(13 October 1788–30 May 1865) was a British
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
soldier and military writer.
Personal background
Shaw Kennedy was the son of Captain John Shaw, a former captain in the 76th Highlanders, of DaltonDalton, Dumfries and Galloway
The village of Dalton is a small settlement about 10 miles southeast of Dumfries and 4 miles south of Lockerbie.The village has an 18th-century church, one of its past ministers being The Rev. John W. Morris MA, who is buried near the southern boundary of the church...
, Kirkcudbrightshire
Kirkcudbrightshire
The Stewartry of Kirkcudbright or Kirkcudbrightshire was a county of south-western Scotland. It was also known as East Galloway, forming the larger Galloway region with Wigtownshire....
. He was educated at Ayr Academy. He was commissioned into the 43rd (Monmouthshire) Light Infantry in 1805 joining the regiment at Hythe, Kent where it was training under Sir John Moore. He first saw service in the Copenhagen Expedition
Battle of Copenhagen (1807)
The Second Battle of Copenhagen was a British preemptive attack on Copenhagen, targeting the civilian population in order to seize the Dano-Norwegian fleet and in turn originate the term to Copenhagenize.-Background:Despite the defeat and loss of many ships in the first Battle of Copenhagen in...
of 1807 as a lieutenant, and under Sir David Baird
Sir David Baird, 1st Baronet
General Sir David Baird, 1st Baronet GCB was a British military leader.-Military career:He was born at Newbyth House in Haddingtonshire, Scotland, the son of an Edinburgh merchant family, and entered the British Army in 1772. He was sent to India in 1779 with the 73rd Highlanders, in which he...
took part in the Corunna Campaign
Battle of Corunna
The Battle of Corunna refers to a battle of the Peninsular War. On January 16, 1809, a French army under Marshal Soult attacked the British under Sir John Moore...
. In the retreat from Corunna, led by Sir John Moore, Shaw and the 43rd fought with the rearguard to the army. On his return to England he suffered from a severe fever from which he never fully recovered. In May 1809, Shaw returned to the Peninsula with the 43rd and took part in the 250-mile march from Lisbon to Talavera where he became adjutant of his now famous regiment at the Battle of Talavera.
Military career
As Robert CraufurdRobert Craufurd
Major-General Robert Craufurd was a Scottish soldier and Member of Parliament . After a military career which took him from India to the Netherlands, he was given command of the Light Division in the Napoleonic Peninsular War under the Duke of Wellington...
's aide-de-camp
Aide-de-camp
An aide-de-camp is a personal assistant, secretary, or adjutant to a person of high rank, usually a senior military officer or a head of state...
during 1809 and 1810, Shaw was on the staff of the Light Division at the Coa and the Agueda, and, with William Campbell, prepared and edited the Standing Orders of the Light Division (printed in Home's Précis of Modern Tactics, pp. 257–277). He was wounded at Almeida
Siege of Almeida (1810)
In the Siege of Almeida, the French corps of Marshal Michel Ney captured the border fortress from Brigadier General William Cox's Portuguese garrison. This action was fought in the summer of 1810 during the Peninsular War portion of the Napoleonic Wars...
in 1810, but rejoined Craufurd at the end of 1811 and was with his chief at the siege of Ciudad Rodrigo in January 1812. At the great assault of January 19, Shaw carried his general, mortally wounded, from the crest of the glacis
Glacis
A glacis in military engineering is an artificial slope of earth used in late European fortresses so constructed as to keep any potential assailant under the fire of the defenders until the last possible moment...
and later conveyed Wellington's summons to surrender to the French governor. At Badajoz
Battle of Badajoz (1812)
In the Battle of Badajoz , the Anglo-Portuguese Army, under the Earl of Wellington, besieged Badajoz, Spain and forced the surrender of the French garrison....
, now once more with the 43rd, he displayed, at the lesser breach, a gallantry which furnished his brother officer William Napier
William Francis Patrick Napier
General Sir William Francis Patrick Napier KCB , Irish soldier in the British Army and military historian, third son of Colonel George Napier was born at Celbridge, near Dublin.-Military service:...
with the theme of one of his most glorious descriptive passages.
At the siege and the Battle of Salamanca
Battle of Salamanca
The Battle of Salamanca saw Anglo-Portuguese and Spanish armies under the Duke of Wellington defeat Marshal Auguste Marmont's French forces among the hills around Arapiles south of Salamanca, Spain on July 22, 1812 during the Peninsular War....
, in the retreat from Burgos
Burgos
Burgos is a city of northern Spain, historic capital of Castile. It is situated at the edge of the central plateau, with about 178,966 inhabitants in the city proper and another 20,000 in its suburbs. It is the capital of the province of Burgos, in the autonomous community of Castile and León...
, Shaw, still a subaltern, distinguished himself and in July 1812 was promoted to Captain. At the end of the year he had to return to England due to ill health. In April 1813, Shaw joined the senior department of the Royal Military College, Sandhurst. He returned to active service and at the Battle of Waterloo
Battle of Waterloo
The Battle of Waterloo was fought on Sunday 18 June 1815 near Waterloo in present-day Belgium, then part of the United Kingdom of the Netherlands...
on 18 June 1815 he was assistant quartermaster-general with the 3rd division of Charles Alten
Charles Alten
Sir Charles Alten , Hanoverian and British soldier, son of Baron Alten, a member of an old Hanoverian family, entered the service of the elector as a page at the age of twelve. He led a famous Anglo-Portuguese division during the Peninsular War. At the Battle of Waterloo, he commanded a division...
. The 3rd division, during the late afternoon of 18 June, had to defend its position against repeated French cavalry charges and Shaw was struck in the side and out of action for a period. During the battle one of his horse's was killed and another wounded under him. Shaw, by his reconnoitring skill and tactical judgment, was of the greatest assistance to Alten and to Wellington, who promoted him Brevet Major in July, and Brevet Lieutenant-Colonel in January 1819.
During the occupation of France by the allied army, Shaw was commandant of Calais
Calais
Calais is a town in Northern France in the department of Pas-de-Calais, of which it is a sub-prefecture. Although Calais is by far the largest city in Pas-de-Calais, the department's capital is its third-largest city of Arras....
from 1815 to 1818, and on his return to England, was employed as a staff officer in the north. In this capacity, he was called upon to deal with the Manchester riots of 1819.
Manchester
Shaw was put on half pay 25 March 1817 and was not called back to active service until 1826 when he was appointed assistant adjutant-general in Belfast, but within less than a year he transferred to Manchester where over the next 9 years he dealt with several outbreaks of civil disorder which had their origins in the widespread dissatisfaction with working conditions.Royal Irish Constabulary
Shaw in 1829 declined Sir Robert Peel's offer of the position of first commissioner of the newly formed Metropolitan Police. He was inspector-general of the Royal Irish ConstabularyRoyal Irish Constabulary
The armed Royal Irish Constabulary was Ireland's major police force for most of the nineteenth and the early twentieth centuries. A separate civic police force, the unarmed Dublin Metropolitan Police controlled the capital, and the cities of Derry and Belfast, originally with their own police...
(RIC) from 1836 to 1838 during which time he raised and organized a force of 8000 men. Afterwards, Shaw led a retired country life for ten years.
Liverpool and ill health
In 1848, during the ChartistChartism
Chartism was a movement for political and social reform in the United Kingdom during the mid-19th century, between 1838 and 1859. It takes its name from the People's Charter of 1838. Chartism was possibly the first mass working class labour movement in the world...
movements, Shaw Kennedy as he was then known (see Family below) was called upon to command at Liverpool
Liverpool
Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough of Merseyside, England, along the eastern side of the Mersey Estuary. It was founded as a borough in 1207 and was granted city status in 1880...
, and soon afterwards was offered successively a command in Ireland
Ireland
Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...
and the governorship of Mauritius
Mauritius
Mauritius , officially the Republic of Mauritius is an island nation off the southeast coast of the African continent in the southwest Indian Ocean, about east of Madagascar...
. Ill-health compelled him to decline these. A little later he briefly took up an offer of the Scottish command, but was again forced to retire due to ill health. In 1852, Sir William Napier, referring to Shaw Kennedy, said that, "He is, perhaps, with the exception of Lord Seaton, the very ablest officer in the service".
Later years
Shaw Kennedy was promoted to Lieutenant-General in June 1854 and in August the same year he became ColonelColonel
Colonel , abbreviated Col or COL, is a military rank of a senior commissioned officer. It or a corresponding rank exists in most armies and in many air forces; the naval equivalent rank is generally "Captain". It is also used in some police forces and other paramilitary rank structures...
of the 47th Foot. He was promoted to full general in August 1862. Shaw Kennedy was appointed C.B. in July 1838 and K.C.B. in 1863. He also held the military general service medal, often known as the Peninsular silver medal, with three clasps and the Waterloo medal.
Shaw Kennedy died in Bath, Somerset on 30 May 1865 following a long standing liver complaint.
Family
Shaw married Mary Primrose Kennedy of Kirkmichael at Ayr in 1820, with whom he later had one son and two daughters. In 1834, on succeeding, in right of his wife, to the estate of Kirkmichael, he added Kennedy to his surname.They had three children:
Wilhelmina Shaw, who died young;
Henrietta Shaw Kennedy, who married Primrose W. Kennedy of Drumellan;
John Shaw Kennedy (d 1905), laird of Kirkmichael
Further reading
- The Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry, Philip Booth (1971)
- The Story of the Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry (The old 43rd and 52nd Regiments), Sir Henry Newbolt (1915)
- Waterloo, Andrew Roberts (2005).