James Cholmondeley

General James Cholmondeley (18 April 1708 – 13 October 1775) was a British Army officer who also sat in Parliament.

He was the second son of George Cholmondeley, 2nd Earl of Cholmondeley and brother of George Cholmondeley, Viscount Malpas, later 3rd Earl of Cholmondeley.

In 1720, he married Lady Penelope Barry, the only child of her father, James Barry, 4th Earl of Barrymore, and heiress of her maternal grandfather, Richard Savage, 4th Earl Rivers.

Cholmondeley received a commission as guidon and major in the 3rd Troop of Horse Guards, of which his father was captain and colonel, on 12 April 1725. He entered Parliament for Bossiney, on the government interest which controlled that borough, on 25 March 1731. On 6 April, he became second lieutenant-colonel of the 3rd Troop, and was also appointed lieutenant-governor of Chester Castle that year. Cholmondeley was a steady supporter of Walpole's government; Walpole was also the father-in-law of his brother, Lord Malpas. In 1734, he was returned for Camelford, another government borough, which he represented until 1741. His wife left him in 1736, for a surgeon named Patrick Anderson, and he divorced her the following year.

Cholmondeley was named colonel of a newly-raised regiment of foot on 17 January 1740/1. He steadfastly supported Walpole through the collapse of the latter's administration, but continued to support government under the ministries of Carteret and Pelham. In 1741, he was returned for Montgomery, a Welsh borough controlled by Henry Arthur Herbert in Walpole's interest. Under Carteret's ministry, he received, on 18 December 1742, the colonelcy of the 34th Regiment of Foot. He led them to the Flemish campaign of 1744, and at Fontenoy in May 1745, where the regiment formed part of the rearguard that covered the allied retreat. He was promoted to brigadier-general in July of that year.

Later that year, Cholmondeley and his regiment were recalled to Great Britain because of the threat posed by the Jacobite rising of 1745. He served as a brigadier under Wade and then Hawley. He fought at Falkirk, and was for a time disabled by the effects of exposure there.

Cholmondeley retired from Parliament in 1747, and was promoted major-general that year. He gave up the colonelcy of the 34th for that of the 12th Dragoons and then the 1st Regiment of Carabiniers in 1749, followed by that of the 6th Dragoons in 1750, which he held until his death. In 1754, he was promoted to lieutenant-general, and in 1770, he was promoted to general and became Governor of Chester when his elder brother died. He died in October 1775 and was buried in Westminster Abbey; the Savage estates which his wife had brought him passed to his grand-nephew George Cholmondeley, 4th Earl of Cholmondeley.