Sir Robert Brownrigg, 1st Baronet

General Sir Robert Brownrigg, 1st Baronet, GCB (8 February 1758 – 27 April 1833) was a British Army officer and colonial administrator. He brought the last part of Sri Lanka under British rule.

Early career Brownrigg was an Anglo-Irishman, he was commissioned as an ensign in 1775. After service with the 9th (East Norfolk) Regiment of Foot, he was appointed Military Secretary to the Duke of York in 1795, and accompanied him to The Helder in Holland in 1799. In 1805 he was made Colonel of the 9th (East Norfolk) Regiment.

Walcheren campaign July 1809, he joined the expedition to the Schelt.

Governor of Ceylon He left his post as Quartermaster-General to the Forces in 1811, and then, in 1813, he was appointed Governor of Ceylon. This account however is rejected by the authorities in Sri Lanka who believe that Brownrigg took the statue from the last King of Kandy when the British annexed Kandy.

Brownrigg died near Monmouth in 1833.

Family In 1789, Brownrigg married Elizabeth Catharine Lewis and together they went on to have six sons and a daughter. Then in 1810 he married Sophia Bissett. He had one more child at the age of 69.

Legacy

In 2011, President Mahinda Rajapaksa of Sri Lanka initiated, at the country's Parliament, a formal revocation of Robert Brownrigg's Gazette Notification - under which participants of the Great Rebellion of 1817–18 had been condemned as "traitors" and their properties confiscated. Brownrigg's Gazette Notification was declared null and void, and all those he branded as "traitors" were declared to be National Heroes of Sri Lanka. A National Declaration was awarded on their behalf to their descendants on Republic Day of Sri Lanka, 22 May.

Arms