General Sir Henry Clinton, KB (16 April 1730 – 23 December 1795) was a British Army officer and politician who sat in the House of Commons between 1772 and 1795. He is best known for his service as a general during the American War of Independence. He arrived in Boston in May 1775 and was the British Commander-in-Chief in America from 1778 to 1782. He was a Member of Parliament for many years due to the influence of his cousin Henry Pelham-Clinton, 2nd Duke of Newcastle. Late in life, he was named Governor of Gibraltar, but he died before assuming the post.
Early life
Henry Clinton was born on 16 April 1730, to Admiral George Clinton
and Anne Carle, the daughter of a general. Early histories claimed his birth year as 1738, a date widely propagated even in modern biographic summaries; according to biographer William Willcox, Clinton claimed in a notebook found in 1958 to be born in 1730, and that evidence from English peerage records places the date of birth as 16 April. Willcox also notes that none of these records give indication of the place of Clinton's birth. Historian John Fredriksen claims that Clinton was born in Newfoundland; his father was posted there from 1732 to 1738.
Little is known of the earliest years of Clinton's life, or of his mother and the two sisters that survived to adulthood. Given his father's naval career, where the family lived is uncertain. They were obviously well-connected to the seat of the Earls of Lincoln, from whom his father was descended, or the estate of the Dukes of Newcastle, to whom they were related by marriage.
In 1739 his father, then stationed at Gibraltar, applied for the governorship of the Province of New York. He won the post in 1741 with the assistance of the Duke of Newcastle (who was his brother's brother-in-law). He did not actually go to New York until 1743. He took young Henry with him, having failed to acquire a lieutenant's commission for the 12-year-old. Henry's career would also benefit from the family connection to the Newcastles.
Records of the family's life in New York are sparse. He is reported to have studied under Samuel Seabury on Long Island, suggesting the family may have lived in the country outside New York City. Clinton's first military commission was to an independent company in New York in 1745. The next year his father procured for him a captain's commission, and he was assigned to garrison duty at the recently captured Fortress of Louisbourg. In 1749, Clinton went to Britain to pursue his military career. It was two years before he received a commission as a captain in the Coldstream Guards. His father, after he returned to London when his term as New York governor was over, procured for Clinton a position as aide to Sir John Ligonier in 1756.
Seven Years' War
By 1758 Clinton had risen to be a lieutenant colonel in the 1st Foot Guards, which was later renamed the Grenadier Guards, and was a line company commander in the 2nd Battalion and was based in London. The 2nd Battalion, 1st Foot Guards, was deployed to Germany to participate in the Seven Years' War, arriving at Bremen on 30 July 1760 then joining the main Army, operating under Conway's Corps near Warberg. George II died on 25 October 1760 and Clinton, along with all Officers of the Regiment, was amongst those listed in the renewal of commissions to George III, in London, on 27 October 1760.
Clinton was back with the 2nd Battalion coming out of winter quarters, at Paderborn in February 1761 and with the unit at the Battle of Villinghausen on 16 July 1761, then under Prince Ferdinand, the Hereditary Crown Prince, at the crossing of the Diemel, near Warburg, in August, before wintering near Bielefeld. His father died this year necessitating a return to England to resolve family affairs.