William Cathcart, 1st Earl Cathcart

General William Schaw Cathcart, 1st Earl Cathcart, (17 September 175516 June 1843) was a British Army officer and diplomat who served as the British ambassador to Russia from 1805 to 1806 and 1812 to 1820.

Early life

Cathcart born at Petersham, London, on 17 September 1755, and educated at Eton College. He was the son of Charles Cathcart, 9th Lord Cathcart and his wife Ann Hamilton.

Military career In 1771 he went to St. Petersburg, where his father, Charles Cathcart, 9th Lord Cathcart, a general in the army, was ambassador. He became an excellent horseman in Russia then from 1773 to 1777 he studied law at the University of Glasgow and was afterwards called to the Scottish Bar. He succeeded to the lordship upon his father's death in 1776, and inherited several properties including Schawpark an estate near Sauchie where his father had commissioned Robert Adam to remodel the mansion house but the works were incomplete when his father died.

In 1777 he obtained a commission in the 7th Dragoons.

Books cited