Heathfield, George Augustus Eliott, Baron Heathfield (1717-1790)

Scottish general. He was a volunteer in the Prussian army (1735-36), then served in the War of Austrian Succession at Dettingen and Fontenoy, and in the West Indies in the Seven Years' War. In 1775, at the outbreak of the War of American Independence, he was sent out as governor to Gibraltar, and defended it heroically against Spanish attacks from 1779-83 (Spain having intervened in the war in 1779 by using New Orleans as a base for privateers against British shipping).

Heathfield was born at Stobbs, Roxburghshire, Scotland. He was educated at Leyden University and Woolwich. On his return to England in 1787 he was made Baron Heathfield of Gibraltar.