John Le Marchant

Major-General John Gaspard Le Marchant was a British Army officer who served in the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. He has been described as one of the finest British cavalry commanders of his generation, and was also an intellectual soldier who had a great influence on the efficient functioning of the British army. Le Marchant was instrumental in founding the first British military academy and staff college, and he saw active service in the French Revolutionary Wars and the Peninsular War, where he was killed in action at the Battle of Salamanca.