LLOYD, HENRY (c. 1720 - 1783), soldier and military writer
Date of birth: c. 1720
Date of death: 1783
Child: Hannibal Evans Lloyd
Gender: Male
Occupation: soldier and military writer
Area of activity: Literature and Writing; Military
Author: Samuel Henry Fergus Johnston
Born at Cwmbychan in the parish of Llanbedr, Meironnydd. The details of his life are somewhat obscure and are known mainly from the memoir of his friend John Drummond. Of Jacobite sympathies, he went to France hoping to obtain a commission in the French army, but, failing to achieve this aim he became a lay brother in a religious order and taught military subjects to officers of the Irish Brigade. He was present at Fontenoy and took part in the Jacobite rising of 1745, in which he was employed as a secret agent with instructions to maintain contact with Welsh sympathisers. He claimed to have been arrested in 1746. After his arrest he served in the French army and was sent to England to report on the possibility of an invasion of the south coast. He also saw service with the Prussian, Austrian, and Russian armies and rose to the rank of major-general. Towards the end of his life he seems to have come to terms with the British Government, which granted him a pension. He died in Belgium in 1783.
Lloyd's principal literary work was The History of the late war in Germany between the King of Prussia and the Empress of Germany and her Allies (two vols., various editions and translations), which included his reflections on the art of war, a section of the work which had considerable influence on Napoleon and other commanders and won him a European reputation. He also published a Political and Military Rhapsody on the Defence of Great Britain (1st ed., 1779, very rare, but several reprints appeared later).
Author
- Professor Samuel Henry Fergus Johnston, (1908 - 1991)
- Drummond's memoir prefixed to later editions of the A Political and Military Rhapsody on the Invasion and Defence of Great Britain and Ireland. Illustrated with three copper-plates … To which is annexed an introduction, and a short account of the author's life [by J. Drummond] (London 1790)
- Liddell Hart, in Journal of the Society for Army Historical Research, xii, 138-52
- for the Lloyds of Cwmbychan see Pennant, A Tour (Tours) in [North] Wales (Rhys' ed.), ii, 267-70
Sources
- Wikipedia Article: Henry Lloyd
Further Reading
Published date: 1959
Article Copyright: http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/
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