Sir Thomas Picton | |
|---|---|
 Portrait of Thomas Picton byWilliam Beechey, c. 1815 | |
| Born | 24 August 1758 (1758-08-24)[1] Haverfordwest,Pembrokeshire, Wales |
| Died | 18 June 1815(1815-06-18) (aged 56) |
| Buried | St George's, Hanover Square, London (later reburied atSt Paul's Cathedral) |
| Allegiance | |
| Branch | British Army |
| Years of service | 1771–1815 |
| Rank | Lieutenant-General |
| Battles / wars | |
| Awards | Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath |
Lieutenant-GeneralSir Thomas PictonGCB (24 August 1758[1] – 18 June 1815) was aBritish Army officer and colonial administrator. He fought in theNapoleonic Wars and died at Waterloo. According to the historianAlessandro Barbero, Picton was "respected for his courage and feared for his irascible temperament". TheDuke of Wellington called him "a rough foul-mouthed devil as ever lived", but found him capable.
While his military prowess is not in doubt, as a colonial administrator he was considered to be a harsh disciplinarian, even by some at the time. He approved the use oftorture during his governorship ofTrinidad. He was put on trial in England for approving thepicketing of a 14-year-old girl.[2] Though initially convicted, Picton later had the conviction overturned arguing that Trinidad was subject to Spanish law, which he was instructed to administer on the island bySir Ralph Abercromby and which permitted the use of torture.[3]
Controversy over his use of torture has revived in recent years and Picton's role in theAtlantic slave trade has also come under scrutiny (he was a slave owner who was involved inslave catching). In 2020, Cardiff Council voted to remove Picton's statue in the "Heroes of Wales" gallery inCardiff City Hall.[4] In the same year it was reported that a plaque was removed from Picton's birthplace.[5]In 2022, theNational Museum Cardiff relocated Picton's portrait from its "Faces of Wales" gallery to a side room, accompanied by descriptions of his brutal treatment of the people of Trinidad.[6] The town ofPicton in New Zealand, named for Picton, has considered reverting to itsMāori name in response to his actions as governor of Trinidad.[7][8]
Picton was for many years chiefly remembered for his exploits under Wellington in the IberianPeninsular War of 1807–1814, during which he displayed great bravery and persistence. He was killed in 1815 fighting at theBattle of Waterloo whilst commanding the5th Infantry Division. During a crucial stage in the battle he was ordered by Wellington to intervene in the Allied centre, which was beginning to buckle under the weight of a heavy French assault. Picton led the 5th division in aggressive counter-advance which stoppedd'Erlon's corps' attack against the allied centre left. The manoeuvre however cost Picton his life when he was struck through the head by French shot. His body was carried from the field by soldiers of the32nd Foot who Picton had personally led in a bayonet charge against the French line. He was the most senior officer to die at Waterloo. At the time of his death he was a sittingMember of Parliament.
Thomas Picton was the seventh of 12 children of Thomas Picton (1723–1790) ofPoyston Hall,Pembrokeshire, Wales, and his wife, Cecil née Powell (1728–1806).[9] He was born inHaverfordwest, Pembrokeshire on (probably) 24 August 1758.[1] In 1771 he obtained anensign'scommission in the12th Regiment of Foot, but he did not join until two years later. The regiment was then stationed atGibraltar, where he remained until he was madecaptain in the75th Regiment of Foot (Prince of Wales's Regiment) in January 1778, at which point he then returned to Britain.[10]
The regiment was disbanded five years later, and Picton quelled a mutiny amongst the men by his prompt personal action and courage, and was promised the rank ofmajor as a reward. He did not receive it, and after living in retirement on his father's estate for nearly 12 years, he went out to theWest Indies in 1794 on the strength of a slight acquaintance with SirJohn Vaughan, the commander-in-chief, who made him hisaide-de-camp and gave him a captaincy in the17th Regiment of Foot. Shortly afterwards he was promoted major in the58th Regiment of Foot.[11]
Under SirRalph Abercromby, who succeeded Vaughan in 1795, Picton was present at the capture ofSaint Lucia (after which he was promoted tolieutenant colonel of the56th Regiment of Foot) and then that ofSt Vincent.[10]
After thereduction of Trinidad in 1797, Abercromby made Pictongovernor of the island. For the next five years he held the island with a garrison he considered inadequate against the threats of internal unrest and of reconquest by the Spanish. He ensured order by vigorous action, viewed variously as rough-and-ready justice or as arbitrary brutality. Picton was also accused of the execution of a dozen slaves, and the slave trade was partly behind his considerable fortune. Historian Chris Evans said, "Delinquents who were sent for immediate execution might consider themselves lucky; others had to endure mutilation and torture."[12]
In October 1801 he wasgazetted to the local rank ofbrigadier-general.[13] During the negotiations leading to thePeace of Amiens of 1802, many of the British inhabitants petitioned against the return of the island to Spain; this together with Picton's and Abercromby's representations, ensured the retention of Trinidad as a British possession.[10]
By then, reports of arbitrariness and brutality associated with his governorship had led to a demand at home for his removal. Picton was also making money from speculation in land and slaves, and his free coloured mistress and mother of four of his children,[14]Rosetta Smith, was believed to be corruptly influencing his decisions. Furthermore, Trinidad no longer faced any external threat, thePitt ministry had fallen and the newAddington administration did not want Trinidad to develop theplantation economy Picton favoured. In 1802,William Fullarton (1754–1808) was appointed as the Senior Member of a commission to govern the island,Samuel Hood became the second member, and Picton himself the junior.[10]
Fullarton had a very different background from Picton. He came from a wealthy and long-established Scots land-owning family and was aWhigMP, a Fellow of theRoyal Society, an improving landlord, and a patron ofRobert Burns. He had been a junior diplomat before raising a regiment in the course of theAmerican War of Independence, of which he naturally became the Colonel. He ended that war in India, commanding an army of 14,000 men in operations againstTippu Sultan.[15] Afterwards he had written an influential pamphlet arguing that theEast India Company had brought trouble on itself by its unprincipled treatment of native princes and native subjects, and that a more humane policy would be preferable to "let them hate so long as they fear" (a favourite motto ofCaligula).[16]
Picton's policy with respect to various sections of the island population had effectively been one of rule by fear, and he and Fullarton rapidly fell out. (This, of itself, further worsened the rift: Fullarton's Indian pamphlet had also reported adversely on conflicts of interest and dissension between the English having weakened their ability to govern well, to negotiate effectively, and to effectively defend their possessions.) Fullarton commenced a series of open enquiries on allegations against Picton and reported his unfavourable views on Picton's past actions at length to meetings of the commission. Picton thereupon tendered his resignation on 31 May 1803.[10]
Picton joined Hood in military operations in Saint Lucia andTobago, before returning toBritain to face charges brought by Fullarton. In December 1803 he was arrested by order of thePrivy Council and promptly released on bail set at £40,000.[10]
The Privy Council dealt with the majority of the charges against Picton. Those charges related principally to accusations of excessive cruelty in the detection and punishment of practitioners ofObeah, severity to slaves, and of execution of suspects out of hand without due process. Only the latter class of charge seems to have seriously worried the Privy Council, and here Picton's argument that either the laws of Trinidad (then still the laws of the former Spanish colonial power: Abercromby had specifically instructed Picton to conduct himself according to those laws)[17] or "the state of the garrison" (martial law) justified the immediate execution in the cases specified eventually carried the day.[18]
Picton was, however, tried in theCourt of King's Bench beforeLord Ellenborough in 1806 on a single charge: themisdemeanour of having in 1801 caused torture to be unlawfully inflicted to extract a confession fromLuisa Calderón, a 14-year-old freemulatto girl suspected of assisting one of her lovers to burgle the house of the man with whom she was living,[19] making off with about £500. Torture (but not the specific form) had been requested in writing by a local magistrate and approved in writing by Picton. The torture applied ("picketing") was a version of a British military punishment and consisted in principle of compelling the trussed-up suspect to stand on one toe on a flat-headed peg for one hour on many occasions within a span of a few days.[20] Calderón was subjected to one session of 55 minutes, and a second of 25 minutes the following day. The young girl was suspended by one arm on a pulley rope set in the ceiling and lowered onto a peg in the floor, bare foot first. This continued until her entire body weight rested on the peg. She did not confess and was imprisoned for a further eight months before being released.[21][12]
The period between Picton's return and the trial had seen a pamphlet war between the rival camps, and the widespread sale of engravings showing a curious British public what an attractive 14-year-old mulatto girl being trussed up and tortured in a state of semi-undress might look like. At the trial, Luisa Calderón gave evidence in person ("Her appearance was extremely interesting, and her countenance, which was that of a mulatto, extremely prepossessing and agreeable")[22] of the nature and duration of her picketing. The legal arguments, however, revolved on whether Spanish law permitted torture of suspects. On the evidence presented by the prosecution and with Picton's defence being damaged by the cross-examination of his witnesses ("Mr Bourville was examined relative to the nature of the office ofalkald, or justice at Trinidad. On his cross examination byWilliam Garrow, he said, the first introduction of torture was by General Picton." ... "Mr Gloucester, the Attorney-General at Trinidad, verified several books as books of authority, in which it was expressly laid down, that by the Spanish law torture might be inflicted; these books were, theBorvillia, theCuria Phillipion, and theElesando. On his cross-examination he admitted that theCaedula andRaecopilazione were also books of authority. They contained a code expressly applicable to theSpanish West India Islands, and there was not a word about torture in them");[22] the jury decided that it did not and found Picton guilty.[10]
Picton promptly sought a retrial, which he got in 1808. At this, Picton's counsel stressed that the use of torture had been requested by the local magistrate, that there were copious authorities showing its legality under Spanish law, and that Calderón had been old enough to be legally tortured. Against the argument that torture was legal under the laws of Spain, but nowhere authorised by those of its colonies, he presented a considerable body of depositions from inhabitants of Trinidad showing that torture had frequently been resorted to by magistrates in the last years of Spanish occupation. The jury found that torture was authorised by the law of the island at the time of the cession, and that the defendant acted without malice, further than making an order which he thought himself bound to comply with.[23] They therefore reversed the verdict of the earlier trial but asked for the full court to consider the further argument of the prosecution that torture of a free person was so repugnant to the laws of England that Picton must have known he could not permit it, whatever Spanish law authorised. The court ordered that Picton's obligations to the court be postponed until the court could consider the matter further but no judgment was ever delivered.[10]
Friends of Picton in the military and among slave owners subscribed towards his legal expenses.[10] Picton contributed the same sum to a relief fund after a widespread fire inPort of Spain. He had meanwhile been promotedmajor-general, and in 1809 he had been governor ofFlushing in the Netherlands during theWalcheren expedition.[10]
In 1810, at Wellington's request, Picton was appointed to command a division in Spain. Wellington recalled that he had been recommended byGeneral Miranda, who considered him "extremely clever", but also did not trust him, because "he has so much vanity that if you sent him out to theCaraccas or the West India Islands, he would attempt to become the prince of them". Wellington commented when he met Picton,
I found him a rough foul-mouthed devil as ever lived, but he always behaved extremely well; no man could do better in different services I assigned to him, and I saw nothing to confirm what Miranda had said of his ambition.[24]
For the remaining years of the Peninsular War, Picton was one of Wellington's principal subordinates. The commander-in-chief never reposed in him the confidence that he gave toBeresford,Hill andRobert Craufurd but in the resolute, thorough and punctual execution of a well-defined task Picton had no superior in the army. His debut, owing partly to his naturally stern and now embittered temper, and partly to the difficult position in which he was placed, was unfortunate. On theRiver Coa in July 1810 Craufurd's division became involved in an action, and Picton, his nearest neighbour, refused to support him, as Wellington's direct orders were to avoid an engagement. Shortly after this, however, atBusaco, Picton succeeded in driving French forces across a ravine in considerable disorder.[10]
After the winter in thelines of Torres Vedras, he added to his reputation and to that of his division, the "Fighting" 3rd, at theBattle of Fuentes de Onoro. In September he was given the local rank of lieutenant-general, and in the same month the division won great glory by its rapid and orderly retirement under severe pressure from the French cavalry at theengagement at El Bodon. In October Picton was appointed to the colonelcy of the77th Regiment of Foot.[25]
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In the first operations of 1812 Picton and Craufurd, side by side, stormed the two breaches ofCiudad Rodrigo. Both Craufurd and Picton's second in command, Major-GeneralHenry MacKinnon, were mortally wounded in the engagement. AtBadajoz, a month later, the successful storming of the fortress was due to his daring self-reliance and penetration in converting the secondary attack on the castle, delivered by the3rd Division, into a real one. He was himself wounded in this terrible engagement, but would not leave the ramparts, and the day after, having recently inherited a fortune, he gave every survivor of his command aguinea. His wound, and an attack of fever, compelled him to return to Britain to recoup his health, but he reappeared at the front in April 1813. While in Britain he was invested with the collar and badge of aKnight of the Order of the Bath by the Prince RegentGeorge, and in June he was made alieutenant-general in the army. At this time, Picton purchased theIscoed estate inCarmarthenshire,[26] and was returned triumphantly as Member of Parliament forPembroke Boroughs at a by-election on 19 March 1813.[27]
At theBattle of Vitoria, Picton led his division across a key bridge under heavy fire. According to Picton, the enemy responded by pummeling the 3rd with 40 to 50cannon and a counter-attack on their right flank (which was still open because they had captured the bridge so quickly) causing the 3rd to lose 1,800 men (over one third of all Allied losses at the battle) as they held their ground.[28] The conduct of the 3rd division under his leadership at Vittoria and in the engagements in thePyrenees raised his reputation as a resolute and skilful fighting general to a still higher point. Early in 1814 he was offered, but after consulting Wellington declined, the command of the British forces operating on the side ofCatalonia.[10]
On the break-up of the division the officers presented Picton with a valuable service of plate, and on 24 June 1814 he received for the seventh time the thanks of theHouse of Commons for his great services. Somewhat to his disappointment he was not included amongst the generals who were raised to the peerage, but early in 1815 he was appointedKnight Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath (GCB).[27]
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WhenNapoleon returned fromElba, Picton, at Wellington's request, accepted a high command in the Anglo-Dutch army, and was appointed commander of the5th Infantry Division. Along with every other senior officer in the army, he was invited to theDuchess of Richmond's Ball that was held on 15 June.[29]
On 18 June, atWaterloo, when Napoleon sent in theComte d'Erlon's Corps to attack the Anglo-allied centre nearLa Haye Sainte at 13:30, Picton launched a bayonet charge on the advancing French column. While repulsing the attack with impetuous valour – his last words were "Charge! Charge! Hurrah! Hurrah!"[30] – he was shot through the temple with a musket ball.[10]
Announcing his death, Wellington wrote to the Minister of War,Lord Bathurst:
Your Lordship will observe, that such a desperate action could not be fought, and such advantages could not be gained, without great loss; and, I am sorry to add, that ours has been immense. In Lieutenant-General Sir Thomas Picton, His Majesty has sustained the loss of an Officer who has frequently distinguished himself in his service; and he fell, gloriously leading his division to a charge with bayonets, by which one of the most serious attacks made by the enemy of our position was defeated.[31]
On subsequent examination, Picton's body was found to have suffered a serious musket ball wound to the hip atQuatre Bras on the 16th. Apart from his servant, he had told no one, nor had he consulted a surgeon, choosing instead to bandage the wound himself.[32]
His body arrived inDeal in Kent on 25 June to a salute from the guns of the ships moored inThe Downs. It reachedCanterbury the same evening and was deposited in a room at the Fountain Inn where Picton had dined on his way to the Continent. At 6:00 am on 26 June, to the strains of the "Dead March" inSaul, the funeral procession accompanied by the52nd Regiment of Foot with reversed arms moved off towards London where it arrived on 3 July.[33]
He was interred in the family vault atSt George's, Hanover Square. A public monument was erected to his memory inSt Paul's Cathedral, by order of Parliament,[34] and in 1823 anotherPicton Monument was erected atCarmarthen by subscription, the king contributing a hundred guineas. On 8 June 1859, his body was re-interred in St Paul's Cathedral, lying close to the body of the Duke of Wellington.[30]
He is memorialised inSt Michael's Church, Rudbaxton in Pembrokeshire, the parish in which he grew up.[35] There is also a monument on the battlefield of Waterloo.[36]
In the 1970 Soviet-Italian epic film,Waterloo, Picton was played by the English actorJack Hawkins.[40]
Picton's trial is depicted in episode three of the third series of the 2011 television seriesGarrow's Law; Picton is played byPatrick Baladi.[41]
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| Political offices | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by | Governor of Trinidad 1797–1802 | Succeeded by Commission (William Fullarton,Samuel Hood, Thomas Picton) |
| Preceded by | Governor of Tobago 1803 | Succeeded by |
| Military offices | ||
| Preceded by | Colonel of the77th (East Middlesex) Regiment of Foot 1811–1815 | Succeeded by |
| Parliament of Great Britain | ||
| Preceded by | Member of Parliament forPembroke Boroughs 1813–1815 | Succeeded by |
