Colonel Andrew Bissett 1708

Bissett was born in 1660 and commissioned into the Coldstream Guards in 1688. He commanded the regiment at the fateful Battle of Almanza in 1707. He reached the rank of Lieutenant-General and was Colonel of the 30th Foot from 1717 to 1742 when he died. He is buried in Westminster Abbey. The painting shows him in a red coat which may be his uniform. The facings of the regiment were blue but his coat has no lapels or collar for the colour to show. The white turned-back front of his coat is not a lapel as such. And cuffs at this period were usually the same colour as the coat. His wife Constance and infant daughter, also Constance, are next to him. There is a shadowy figure of a boy in the background which is his son Andrew who died young in 1702. The girl in yellow is his niece Marjorie, the daughter of George Winram who was a Coldstream officer and married to Bissett's sister. Winram was taken prisoner at Almanza.

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