Granard was appointed a lieutenant-colonel in the army 17 May 1794, and lieutenant-colonel commandant of the 108th foot, an Irish regiment which he raised in November following. The 108th was broken up at Gibraltar in 1796. Granard also raised the Longford militia, and commanded it at the battle of Castlebar in 1798, where the regiment, which was said to be disaffected, ran away. Lord Cornwallis wrote in highest praise of Granard's gallantry in endeavouring to rally his regiment (Cornwallis Correspondence, ii. 393). He was also present at Ballinamuck, where the French, under Humbert, surrendered to Cornwallis.
Granard displayed the greatest aversion to the union, an opinion from which none of the inducements then so lavishly offered by the government made him swerve, and he was one of the twenty-one Irish peers who recorded their protest against the measure (see ‘Protest of the Irish House of Lords,’ Ann. Reg. 1800, p. 196). Having been deprived of his seat in the House of Lords after the union, he took little part in politics, but devoted himself to the management of his estates, and is said to have been a popular landlord. During the brief administration of ‘All the Talents’ in 1806 he was made a peer of the United Kingdom under the title of Baron Granard of Castle Donington, Leicestershire (the seat of his father-in-law), and was also appointed clerk of the crown and hanaper in Ireland, then a most lucrative office. He became a colonel in the army in 1801, major-general in 1808, and lieutenant-general in 1813. He afterwards resided chiefly in France. He came to England to support both the Roman Catholic Emancipation and Reform Bills, and after the passing of the latter was offered a promotion in the peerage, which he declined, as he had previously refused the order of St. Patrick. He was made full general in July 1830. He died at his residence, the Hôtel Marbœuf, Champs-Elysées, Paris, 9 June 1837, at the age of seventy-seven, and was buried in the family resting-place at Newtownforbes, Longford, Ireland.
[Forbes's Lives of the Earls of Granard (London, 1858), pp. 194–200; Gent. Mag. new ser. viii. 205.]
FORBES, HENRY (1804–1859), pianist and composer, a pupil of Smart, Hummel, Moscheles, and Herz, had greater success as executive artist and professor than as composer. When organist of St. Luke's, Chelsea, he published (1843) ‘National Psalmody,’ containing some original numbers. His opera, ‘The Fairy Oak,’ was condemned by the critics, although, in spite of, or perhaps in consequence of, its want of originality, it held the stage with the approval of the public for a week or two after the production at Drury Lane, 18 Oct. 1845. A cantata, ‘Ruth,’ was performed in 1847. Forbes was frequently associated with his brother, George Forbes (1813–1883), in concerts, and was between 1827 and 1850 conductor of the Società Armonica. He died on 24 Nov. 1859, in his fifty-sixth year.
[Grove's Dictionary of Music, i. 539, iii. 543; Brown's Dictionary of Musicians, p. 250; London daily and weekly papers of October 1845 and November 1859.]
FORBES, JAMES (1629?–1712), nonconformist divine, a Scotchman, was born in or about 1629. He was educated at Aberdeen, where he proceeded M.A., being subsequently admitted ad eundem at Oxford. In 1654 he was sent to Gloucester Cathedral, where he preached ‘ with great success, but to the apparent danger of shortening his life.’ At the Restoration he was speedily ejected from the cathedral, but he still continued at Gloucester, ‘ministering privately as he could.’ Struck by his talents, Robert Frampton [q. v.], then dean, but afterwards bishop of Gloucester, ‘courted him to conformity in vain.’ In consequence of Yarrington's, or rather Packington's, plot, he was committed to Chepstow Castle, where he was long kept in a ‘strait and dark’ room. On regaining his liberty he returned to his pastoral charge, in the pursuit of which he was often imprisoned in Gloucester, on one occasion for a whole year. During the reign of Charles II he was indicted upon the Corporation Act, the penalty of which was imprisonment. He was also indicted on 23 James I, the penalty of which was 20l. a month, and upon 35 Elizabeth, of which the penalty was to abjure the realm or suffer death. At the same time, also, he was excommunicated, and the writ de excom. capiendo was out against him. At the time of Monmouth's rebellion he retired to Enfield, Middlesex, and there continued unmolested in his ministry. He was afterwards recalled to Gloucester, where he continued to labour until his death, ‘though to his disadvantage.’ Altogether, he exercised his ministry in Gloucester for fifty-eight years ‘wanting but one month.’ He died 31 May 1712, aged 83, and was buried under his own communion-table. His funeral sermon was preached by John Noble of Bristol. Calamy, who represents him as the model of a nonconformist divine, states that at his death he left many gifts to charitable uses, including his library, which was of considerable value. Forbes
