Lieutenant-General Benjamin Bloomfield GCB GCH

Benjamin Bloomfield was born on 13 April 1768. He was educated at RMA Woolwich and commissioned into the RA in 1781. He was in action at the battle of Vinegar Hill in June 1798, and served in Newfoundland and Gibraltar. In 1806 he commanded a Troop of Horse Artillery at the time when John Singleton Copley painted his equestrian portrait of the Prince of Wales. Behind the Prince are gathered various military commanders who were in favour at that time. Colonel Benjamin Bloomfield features prominently, wearing his Tarleton helmet and is named in the long title of the painting. He was appointed Gentleman-in-Waiting to to the king in that year.
He was MP for Plymouth from 1812 to 1818, knighted in 1815, and made a Privy Councillor in 1817. His relationship to King George IV began when he was appointed ADC, then Chief Equerry and Clerk Marshal, when George was Prince of Wales. He ended up as his Private Secretary and Keeper of the Privy Purse. He had a difficult job trying to keep the King’s expenses in check which caused bad feeling between himself and the King. He was soon sacked and offered the governorship of Ceylon to get him out of the way. He refused this and began to make demands for a peerage and a generous pension. He was appointed a Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath in 1822 and a post in Stockholm which he held from 1823 to 1832. In May 1825 he was ennobled in the peerage of Ireland as 1st Baron Bloomfield.
He became Colonel Commandant of the Royal Artillery on 21 Feb 1824 and Commanding Officer of Woolwich in 1826. He reached the rank of Lieutenant-General in 1830 and died on 15 August 1846. In the latter years of his life he became devoutly religious. He was married to Harriott Douglas in 1797 and they had two daughters, and a son who became Baron Bloomfield of Ciamhaltha in Tipperary. The portrait is a print from a painting of Lieutenant-General Bloomfield which was painted after 1837 when the busby was adopted by the RHA, making him around 70 years old at the time it was painted. The print was published in 1844.

Regimental Details | Commanding Officers