Robert Abercromby (21 October 1740 – 3 November 1827) served as commander-in-chief, India of the British Army from 1793 to 1797, succeeding Charles Cornwallis and preceding Charles Morgan. Abercromby led the 37th Regiment of Foot during the American Revolutionary War, and he commanded the British army during the Third Anglo-Mysore War as commander-in-chief of the British in British India.
Biography[]
Robert Abercromby was born on 21 October 1740 in Clackmannanshire, Scotland, the younger brother of Sir Ralph Abercromby. Abercromby saw action in the French and Indian War and rose to the rank of Captain in 1761, and in 1773 he became a Lieutenant in the 37th Regiment of Foot. This unit served in the British Army during the American Revolutionary War, and he fought at Long Island, Brandywine, Germantown, Crooked Billet, Monmouth, Charleston, and Yorktown, being defeated in an ambush by the Continental Army in the Battle of Millstone on 20 January 1777, getting revenge at the Battle of Crooked Billet on 1 May 1778 by ambushing a Pennsylvania regiment with assistance from John Graves Simcoe's Queen's Rangers. Abercromby was a light infantry commander for much of the war, and he was promoted to colonel after the war's end. Abercromby served in India from 1790 to 1797, serving as Governor of Bombay and commander-in-chief of the British Army in British India at the time of the Third Anglo-Mysore War. In 1797, Abercromby was promoted to Lieutenant-General, and he became a member of Parliament after returning to England. Abercromby died in 1827 at the age of 87, the oldest general in the British Army.
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