Eliott, George Augustus, 1st Baron Heathfield (1717 -1790)

George Augustus Eliott was the eighth and youngest son of Sir Gilbert Eliott, 3rd Baronet of Stobs in Roxburghshire, and Eleanor daughter of William Elliot, merchant of Wells and London. George Augustus was educated at the University of Leiden and the École Royale du Genie Militaire at La Fère in Picardy. In 1735 he became a volunteer in the 23rd Regiment of Foot, the Royal Welch Fusiliers, transferred into the Engineer Corps from which he purchased the adjutancy of the 2nd troop of Horse Grenadiers, leaving them in 1759 to raise the 1st regiment of the Light Horse, Eliott's Horse. In 1775 he was appointed Commander in Chief in Ireland, but relinquished that command to become Governor of Gibraltar. For his gallant defence of Gibraltar from 1779 to 1783, he was thanked by Parliament, made a Knight of the Bath 14 June 1787, and created Baron Gibraltar and Lord Heathfield of Sussex 6 July 1787. He married, 8 June 1748, Anne Pollexfen daughter of Sir Francis Drake, Baronet, and they had an only son, Francis Augustus, 2nd Baron Heathfield, a Lieutenant General in the army, who died 26 January 1813 leaving no issue, when the title became extinct. His sister Anne married John Trayton Fuller of Brighton. On the death of the second Baron, their third son, Thomas Trayton Fuller, succeeded to both the Eliott and Drake estates, took the additional surnames Eliott Drake, and was created a baronet in 1821.