Madras presidency, to be the Madras member of the Indian law commission then sitting at Calcutta under the presidency of Macaulay to draw up the Indian codes. On 15 Feb. 1848 he was appointed a member of the council at Madras, and in 1850 became president of the revenue, marine, and college boards of that government, and he returned to England in 1853 on completing his five years in that office. He did not expect to return to India, but when the East India Company decided in 1854 to form a supreme legislative council for all India, Eliott was appointed to represent Madras upon it. He accepted and remained in Calcutta as member of the legislative council until 1859, when he left India finally. When the order of the Star of India was extended in 1866, and divided into three classes, Eliott was the first Madras civilian to receive the second class, and he became a K.C.S.I. in 1867. Eliott, who married in 1818 Georgina, daughter of General George Russell of the Bengal army, and left a family of four sons and six daughters, died at The Boltons, West Brompton, on 30 Oct. 1872.
[Times, 2 Nov. 1872; East India Directories; Foster's Baronetage; Hardwicke's Knightage; Prinsep's Madras Civilians.]
ELIOTT, GEORGE AUGUSTUS, Lord Heathfield (1717–1790), general and defender of Gibraltar, seventh son of Sir Gilbert Eliott, third baronet, of Stobs, Roxburghshire, was born at Stobs on 25 Dec. 1717. Like most Scotchmen of his period he was educated at the university of Leyden, and he then proceeded, by special permission, to the French military college of La Fère, where he received what was supposed to be the best military education of the time. He first saw service as a volunteer with the Prussian army in the campaigns of 1735 and 1736. When he returned to England he went through a course of instruction at Woolwich, and received his commission in the English army as a field engineer. At this period there was no regular corps of sappers and miners, and engineer officers generally held commissions as well in the cavalry or infantry. Young Eliott was therefore gazetted to the 2nd horse grenadier guards, which afterwards became the 2nd life guards, as a cornet in 1739. His uncle, Colonel James Eliott, then commanded the regiment, and George Eliott was speedily promoted lieutenant and appointed adjutant. He served with this regiment throughout the war of the Austrian succession from 1742 to 1748, was present at the battle of Dettingen, where he was wounded, and at Fontenoy. He purchased his captaincy while on service, in 1745, his majority in 1749, and his lieutenant-colonelcy in 1754, when he resigned his commission as field engineer. George II, who had a great personal liking for Eliott, made him his aide-de-camp in 1755, and when it was decided to equip some regiments of light cavalry after the model of the famous Prussian hussars of Frederick the Great, he was selected to raise one, and was gazetted colonel of the 1st light horse on 10 March 1759. At the head of this regiment Eliott greatly distinguished himself in Germany throughout the campaigns of 1759, 1760, and 1761, and was repeatedly thanked by Prince Ferdinand for his services. He was a military enthusiast, and made his regiment a pattern to the army, and he was particularly noted for the care which he took to make his troopers comfortable in their quarters, though he himself was a perfect Spartan in the field, living on vegetarian diet, and drinking nothing but water. He commanded the cavalry as brigadier-general in the descent upon the French coast in 1761, and was promoted major-general in the following year and sent as second in command to the Earl of Albemarle in the expedition to Cuba. During the fierce fighting and the terrible ravages of disease which decimated the English army in that island, he made himself conspicuous by his valour and constancy, and, when he returned to England in 1763, after the capture of Havana, he was promoted lieutenant-general. As second in command he received a large share of the prize money of Havana, and with it purchased the estate of Heathfield in Sussex, from which he afterwards took his title. On the conclusion of the seven years' war George III reviewed Eliott's regiment of light horse in Hyde Park, and after expressing his astonishment at its admirable condition and efficiency, asked its colonel what honour he could confer upon it, when the general in courtly fashion begged that it might be called the royal regiment. The regiment was accordingly renamed the 15th, or king's own royal light dragoons, a designation now borne by its successor, the 15th hussars. Eliott was at the close of 1774 appointed commander-in-chief of the forces in Ireland, a post which he held only until 1775, when, there being every prospect that Spain as well as France would, under the arrangement of the pacte de famille, take advantage of the rebellion in America to attack England, an experienced governor was needed for the fortress of Gibraltar, and Eliott was selected for the post. The Spaniards had never been reconciled to the possession by the English of Gibraltar; to recover it had been one of the favourite schemes of every prominent Spanish statesman from Alberoni to Wall, and Eliott was
