Guy Carleton (3 September 1724 – 10 November 1808) was Governor of British Canada from 1768 to 1796, succeeding James Murray and preceding Robert Prescott; from 1782 to 1783, he also served as Commander-in-Chief, North America after Henry Clinton was sacked. Carleton fought in the American Revolutionary War, repelling an attack on Quebec in 1775 before being appointed commander-in-chief at the end of the war.
Biography[]
Guy Carleton was born on 3 September 1724 in Strabane, County Tyrone, Ireland to an Ulster Scots family. Carleton was commissioned into the British Army in 1745 and served alongside James Wolfe at the Battle of Culloden during the Jacobite rising of 1745, and he received a head wound at the Battle of the Plains of Abraham, while Wolfe was killed. Carleton became Lieutenant-Governor of Quebec on 7 April 1766 under James Murray after the end of the French and Indian War, and he was made commander-in-chief of all British troops stationed in Quebec; in 1768, he became Governor of Quebec. On 25 May 1772, he was promoted to Major-General of the British Army and commanded the defense of Quebec in 1775 during the American Revolutionary War; in 1782, he was briefly appointed commander-in-chief of all British forces in North America before the war's end in 1783. In August 1786, he became Lord Dorchester and on 7 February 1792 joined the House of Lords; in 1796, he decided to leave Canada and his governorship there behind, dying in England in 1808.