George Anson (British Army major-general)

Major-General George Anson CB (13 October 1797 – 27 May 1857) was a British military officer and Whig politician.

Military career
Anson was the second son of Thomas Anson, 1st Viscount Anson, and his wife Anne Margaret, daughter of Thomas Coke, 1st Earl of Leicester of Holkham Hall, Norfolk. Thomas Anson, 1st Earl of Lichfield was his elder brother. He was educated at Eton College.

He entered the Army in 1814 as an Ensign in the 3rd (Scots Fusiliers) Guards and served at an early age in the Napoleonic Wars and fought at the Battle of Waterloo.

He later sat as a Member of Parliament (MP) for Great Yarmouth from 1818 to 1835, for Stoke-upon-Trent from 1836 to 1837, and for Staffordshire South from 1837 to 1853 and served as Storekeeper of the Ordnance under Lord Melbourne from 1835 to 1841 and as Clerk of the Ordnance under Melbourne in 1841 and under Lord John Russell from 1846 to 1852.

Anson was a prominent owner of racehorses: he won the Epsom Derby with Attila in 1842 and the Epsom Oaks two years later with The Princess.

Anson succeeded to the command of the Madras Army in 1854, and early in 1856 became Commander-in-Chief in India. He was Colonel of the 55th (Westmorland) Regiment of Foot from 12 December 1856.

He died of cholera, at the age of 59, during his march against the Indian rebels during the of Siege of Delhi in May 1857 and was buried in Kurnaul (now Karnal). The body was later exhumed and taken back to England to be buried in Kensal Green cemetery.

Anson married the Hon. Isabella Elizabeth Annabella, daughter of Cecil Weld-Forester, 1st Baron Forester, in 1830. They had three daughters. Isabella survived her husband by only a year and died in December 1858.

Famous British Olympian Sir Matthew Pinsent is George's great great great grandson.