Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Ludlow, George James
LUDLOW, GEORGE JAMES, third and last Earl Ludlow (1758–1842), general, born on 12 Dec. 1758, was second son of Peter, first earl Ludlow, comptroller of the household to George III, and his wife, the Lady Francis Lumley, eldest daughter of Thomas, third earl of Scarborough. On 17 May 1778 he was appointed ensign 1st footguards (now Grenadier guards), in which he became lieutenant and captain on 16 March 1781, captain and lieutenant-colonel on 24 Nov. 1790, and regimental major on 9 May 1800. He was appointed brevet-colonel in 1795, major-general in 1798, lieutenant-general in 1805, and general in 1814. He embarked for America with the drafts in the spring of 1781, and was with Lord Cornwallis at the surrender of York Town on 17 Oct. 1781. Washington sent him to New York with despatches relating to Captain (afterwards Sir) Charles Asgill [q. v.] He returned home in November 1782. In 1793 he was selected for the command of one of the four light companies then added to his regiment (Hamilton, ii. 275). He served in Flanders in 1793–4, and lost his left arm in the affair near Roubaix on 17 May 1794 (ib. ii. 304). In 1798 he was on the home district staff, and in 1800 proceeded to Ireland with the 2nd brigade of guards, consisting of the 1st battalions of Coldstream and 3rd (now Scots) guards, which he commanded in the Vigo expedition and in the Egyptian campaign of 1801, including the battles before Alexandria and the blockade of that city, but in August 1801 he was transferred to a line brigade. When in camp at Alexandria, before the breaking-up of the army, the brigade of guards presented him with a gold vase, now in the Guards' Club. He held major-general's commands in the eastern counties and in Kent during the invasion alarms of 1803–4, and commanded a division in the Hanover expedition of 1805, and in the Copenhagen expedition of 1807.
Ludlow was made K.B. on 26 Sept. 1804, and G.C.B. on the reconstitution of the order in 1815. He succeeded his brother, the second peer, as Earl Ludlow, Viscount Preston, and Baron Ludlow, all in the peerage of Ireland, in 1811. He was himself created Baron Ludlow in the peerage of the United Kingdom on 10 Sept. 1831. He was governor of Berwick-on-Tweed, a member of the consolidated board of general officers, a colonel in succession of the old 96th (late a second battalion 52nd), of the 38th foot (from 1808 to 1836), and of the Scotch fusilier guards (now Scots guards), to which he was appointed on 30 May 1836. He died at his seat, Cople Hall, near Bedford, on 16 April 1842, when the titles became extinct, and the Irish estates passed to the Duke of Bedford.
[Debrett's Peerage, 1841, ‘Ludlow;’ Army Lists; Hamilton's Hist. Gren. Guards, London, 1872, vols. ii. and iii.; Mackinnon's Coldstream Guards, London, 1832, vol. ii.; Philippart's Roy. Mil. Calendar, 1820, ii. 59; Sir R. Wilson's Narrative of the Campaign in Egypt, London, 1802; W. Gordon's Military Transactions, London, 1809, for accounts of Hanover and Baltic expeditions; Gent. Mag. 1842, pt. ii. 92.]