A knight is a person granted an honorary title of knighthood by a head of state or representative for service to the monarch, the church or the country, especially in a military capacity.
In the United Kingdom and the British Overseas Territories, personal bravery, achievement, or service are rewarded with honours. The honours system consists of three types of award:
The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding contributions to the arts and sciences, work with charitable and welfare organisations, and public service outside the civil service. It comprises five classes of awards across both civil and military divisions, the most senior two of which make the recipient either a knight if male or a dame if female. There is also the related British Empire Medal, whose recipients are affiliated with, but not members of, the order.
Sir is a formal honorific address in English for men, derived from Sire in the High Middle Ages. Both are derived from the old French "Sieur" (Lord), brought to England by the French-speaking Normans, and which now exist in French only as part of "Monsieur", with the equivalent "My Lord" in English.
The Most Honourable Order of the Bath is a British order of chivalry founded by King George I on 18 May 1725. Recipients of the Order are usually senior military officers or senior civil servants, and the monarch awards it on the advice of His Majesty's Government. The name derives from an elaborate medieval ceremony for preparing a candidate to receive his knighthood, of which ritual bathing was an element. While not all knights went through such an elaborate ceremony, knights so created were known as "knights of the Bath".
The New Zealand royal honours system, a system of orders, decorations and medals, recognises achievements of, or service by, New Zealanders or others in connection with New Zealand. Until 1975, New Zealand used the British honours system. Since then the country has introduced a number of uniquely New Zealand honours, and as of 2021, only the dynastic British honours continue in active use in New Zealand, with the exception of the Order of the Companions of Honour.
Lieutenant-General John Keane, 1st Baron Keane was an Irish soldier, whose military exploits in the First Anglo-Afghan War led to him being created Baron Keane of Ghuznee.
General Sir William Anson, 1st Baronet was a British Army officer of the Anson family. Serving in the 1st Foot Guards, Anson saw service in the Flanders Campaign during the French Revolutionary Wars. He assumed command of the 1st Battalion, 1st Foot Guards, during the Napoleonic Wars and commanded it at the Battle of Corunna.
The Royal Order of Saint Hubert, or sometimes is a Roman Catholic dynastic order of knighthood founded in 1444 or 1445 by Gerhard VII, Duke of Jülich-Berg. He sought to commemorate his victory over the House of Egmond at the Battle of Linnich on 3 November, which is Saint Hubert's day.
The Military Order of Savoy was a military honorary order of the Kingdom of Sardinia first, and of the Kingdom of Italy later. Following the abolition of the Italian monarchy, the order became the Military Order of Italy.
General Sir George Townshend Walker, 1st Baronet, GCB ComTE was a British Army officer. He joined the army in 1782, but after his first two regiments were quickly disbanded, he joined the 36th Regiment of Foot stationed in India in 1784. He returned to England in 1787 suffering from an illness, and became aide de camp to General Thomas Bruce in Ireland. After being promoted to captain lieutenant, Walker studied German and tactics in Germany until he was promoted to captain in the 60th Regiment of Foot in 1791. When the French Revolutionary War began in 1793, he took a force of volunteers to reinforce the Flanders Campaign, where he fought at the Battle of Tournay. He was appointed Inspector of Foreign Corps while serving on the continent, and as such helped form Roll's Regiment for British service. He took them to England in 1796, and having been promoted to major he went to serve in Portugal in 1797. Here Walker again served as an aide de camp, to at first Major-General Simon Fraser and then the Prince of Waldeck.
Major-general James Kemmis was a British Army officer at the time of the Napoleonic Wars.
Lieutenant General George de Grey, 3rd Baron Walsingham was a British peer and Army officer.
Social background of officers and other ranks in the British Army, 1750–1815 discusses career paths and social stratification in the British Army from the mid-eighteenth century to the end of the Napoleonic wars. The British army of the period was mainly recruited through volunteer enlistment. Most recruits were young men from the lowest social classes who could not find a livelihood on the civilian labour market. The non-commissioned officers were promoted soldiers sharing the social background of the rank and file. Literacy was a basic requirement for promotion to non-commissioned rank; writing and basic mathematical skills were compulsory for ranks above corporal. About ten percent of the commissioned officers were former sergeants, but the majority came from higher social strata. Aristocracy and gentry were over-represented in the higher ranks, but most officers came from a background of landowners, or were the sons of clergymen, lawyers, doctors or successful merchants. The purchase system was the mechanism through which the officer corps was structured according to social class.
General Sir Warren Marmaduke Peacocke KCH CTS KC was a British Army officer of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, most notable for his command of the Lisbon garrison during the Peninsular War. Peacocke joined the British Army in 1780, serving with a series of units before transferring to the Coldstream Guards in 1793. After having served as an aide de camp during the Irish Rebellion of 1798, Peacocke fought as a company commander with his regiment in the Egypt Campaign between 1800 and 1801, for which he was made a Knight of the Order of the Crescent by the Ottoman Empire. He subsequently served with the Coldstream Guards on the Hanover Expedition in 1805 and Copenhagen Expedition in 1807.
Lieutenant-General Henry de Hinuber, known in Hanover as Eduard Christoph Heinrich von Hinüber, was a Hanoverian infantry officer who commanded units of the King's German Legion (KGL) while serving in the British Army during the Napoleonic Wars. Hinuber joined the army of the Electorate of Hanover in 1781, and in 1782 travelled to fight in the Second Anglo-Mysore War in India. He was present at the Siege of Cuddalore and continued on in India until 1792. Promoted to major in 1798, Hinuber served until France invaded Hanover and disbanded the army in 1803.
Lieutenant-General Stafford Lightburne was an Anglo-Irish British Army officer who served in the American and French Revolutionary Wars, before becoming a general officer during the Napoleonic Wars. Lightburne was mentioned in dispatches by Prince Frederick, Duke of York and Albany for his service at the Battle of Tournay in 1794, before commanding the 53rd Regiment of Foot in the West Indies. After serving as a staff officer in Ireland, Lightburne was given command of a brigade in the Peninsular War in 1809, during which year he was present at the Battle of Busaco. He was subsequently dismissed from his position in ignominious but obscure circumstances by Lieutenant-General Lord Wellington in 1810. Lightburne received no further employment in the army after this, but was promoted to lieutenant-general in 1813. Little is known about his personal life.
