Thomas Gage (1718-1787)

He was the second son of the 1st Viscount Gage and was born at Firle Place in Sussex, seat of the Gage family since the 15th Century. On leaving Westminster School he was commissioned into the army seeing action in the War of the Austrian Succession, the Second Jacobite Uprising, and the French & Indian War in North America. In 1760, after the British Conquest of Quebec, he was named military Governor of Montreal and following the Treaty of Paris in 1763 he was appointed Commander-in-Chief of the British Forces in North America, stationed in New York. In 1774, he was appointed Governor of Massachusetts but after his pyrrhic victory at the Battle of Bunker Hill he was recalled to England at the end of 1775. He lived at Portland Place in London and retired with the full rank of General in command of the 11th Dragoons. In 1758, he married Margaret, daughter of Peter Kemble, President of the Colonial Council of New Jersey, and a great-granddaughter of Stephanus Van Cortlandt, Mayor of New York. They were the parents of eleven children including Henry who became the 3rd Viscount Gage.