Despite limited responsibility, Fowke was originally sentenced to nine months suspension, but George II insisted on his dismissal from the army. He was reinstated as Lieutenant General following the accession of George III in 1761 and died in Bath, Somerset in March 1765.
Thomas Fowke was the elder son of Thomas Fowke of Gunstone,[1]South Staffordshire, and his second wife Mary. He was twice married, first to Elizabeth Ingoldsby, with whom he had a daughter, and following her death, to Dorothea Randall; they had two children.
Career
Fowke began his military career in 1702 during the War of the Spanish Succession as an Ensign in Nicholas Lepell's Regiment of Foot.[2] He became captain in June 1707, Peregrine Lascelles, who later served with him in the 1745 Rising, being a colleague.[3] In 1710, Lepell's was posted to Spain, but despite victories at Almenar and Saragossa, suffered heavy casualties in the defeat at Villaviciosa in December. Lepell, by then the senior British officer in Catalonia, reported losses of 107 men after the battle.[4]
Villaviciosa ended the campaign in Spain, and Lepells was disbanded in November 1712 as the army was reduced prior to the 1713 Peace of Utrecht.[5] Fowke managed to retain his commission, transferring into Whetham's, later 27th Foot, before joining Cotton's Foot in 1716 as a Major. In June 1722, he became Lieutenant-Colonel of Kerr's Dragoons.[6]
Following the outbreak of the War of the Austrian Succession in 1740, Fowke was promoted to Colonel of the 43rd Foot. He exchanged into the Queen's Royal Regiment, then based in Scotland, and was promoted Brigadier General in June 1745, three months before the Jacobite rising of 1745.[7] He served as deputy to Sir John Cope, military commander in Scotland, at Prestonpans in September, where their army collapsed in a battle lasting less than 15 minutes. Fowke's two regiments of dragoons fled without firing a shot, and halted only when they reached Berwick-upon-Tweed. He, Cope and Lascelles were later tried by a court-martial in 1746, and although all three were exonerated, Cope never held command again.[8]
Cartoon showing the popular hysteria provoked by defeat at Minorca; Byng was executed in March 1757, Fowke dismissed
Fowke was also court martialled for allegedly refusing to provide Byng with soldiers from the Gibraltar garrison. He was originally sentenced to nine months suspension, but George II insisted he be dismissed. Contemporaries felt he and Byng had been unfairly singled out, a 1757 Parliamentary committee noting the poor state of the island's defences, with over 35 senior officers absent from their posts, including the governor and colonels of all four regiments in its garrison.[10]
This ended Fowke's career, although George III reinstated his rank in 1761.[11] He died in Bath, Somerset in March 1765.
In 1651, Thomas Fowke's great-uncle Gerard moved to Virginia, along with his cousin, Philip Mason; one of their descendants was George Mason (1725–1792), a US Founding Father. In 1755, he commemorated his family roots by building a new house in Virginia named Gunston Hall; in 1923, another Mason built a second Gunston Hall, in North Carolina.[12]
Fowke's personal papers for the period 1752 to 1755, including his time as Governor of Gibraltar, were acquired by in 2015 by the Lewis Walpole Library, part of Yale University.[13]
Adjutant General's Office (1842). Historical Records of the British Army; History of the 13th Light Dragoons. John W Parker.
Blaikie, Walter Biggar, ed. (1916). Publications of the Scottish History Society (Volume Series 2, Volume 2 (March, 1916) 1737–1746). Scottish History Society.
Cannon, Richard (1837). Historical Record of the Second, Or Queen's Royal Regiment of Foot. William Clowes.
Dalton, Charles (1903). English army lists and commission registers, 1661–1714 Volume V. Eyre and Spottiswood.
Dalton, Charles (1904). English army lists and commission registers, 1661–1714 Volume VI. Eyre and Spottiswood.
Debrett (1792). History, Debates & Proceedings of Parliament 1743–1774; Volume III. Debrett.
La Raia, Jackie (12 September 2013). "George Mason's Gunston Hall". Gunston Hall Blog (Virginia). Retrieved 9 February 2019.
Leslie, JH (1916). Notes and Queries, 12th Series, Volume II. Frank Chance.
Regan, Geoffrey (2000). Brassey's Book of Naval Blunders. Brassey's.
Tumath, Andrew (2013). "The British Army in Catalonia after the Battle of Brihuega 1710–1712". Journal of the Society for Army Historical Research. 91 (367): 182–205. JSTOR44232207.
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