Appointed 6th August 1803.
This officer entered the army on the 15th of December 1777, as a cornet in the fourth regiment of horse, now the seventh dragoon guards; and on the 9th of July 1779, he exchanged to an ensigncy in the Coldstream guards, in which he was promoted to a lieutenancy, with the rank of captain, on the 12th of December 1781. On the 25th of June 1785, he was advanced to the rank of major of the twelfth dragoons, and on the 16th of September 1786, exchanged into the thirteenth foot, of which regiment he was appointed lieut.-colonel on the 16th of June 1789. Lieut.-Colonel Cradock commanded the thirteenth regiment in the West Indies, and on his return, in 1792, was appointed quartermaster-general in Ireland, where he was specially employed by Government in many of the disturbed counties. He went a second time to the West Indies, in the command of the second battalion of grenadiers, under the orders of General Sir Charles (afterwards Earl) Grey, and was present at the reduction of Martinique (where he was wounded), St. Lucia, Guadaloupe, and at the siege of Fort Bourbon. Before the reduction of the second battalion of grenadiers in the West Indies he was appointed by Sir Charles Grey to be his aide-de-camp, and on his return to England he received the thanks of Parliament for his services.
On the 26th of February 1795, Lieut.-Colonel Cradock received the brevet rank of colonel, and on the 16th of April following was appointed colonel of the one hundred and twenty-seventh regiment, which was disbanded in 1798, when he was placed on half pay.
On the 1st of January 1798, Colonel Cradock was advanced to the rank of major-general, and served as quartermaster-general in Ireland during the rebellion of that year; was under the command of Lieut.-General Gerard (afterwards Viscount) Lake at the affair with the rebels at Vinegar Hill, and in the subsequent movements in the county of Wexford. Major-General Cradock accompanied Earl Cornwallis as quartermaster-general in his lordship’s march against the French forces that landed in Killala under General Humbert, and was severely wounded in the action at Ballynahinch, when the French and rebel force were defeated, and laid down their arms.
Major-General Cradock was afterwards appointed to the staff of the Mediterranean, under General Sir Ralph Abercromby, and proceeded on the expedition to Egypt, and was in the actions of the 8th, 13th, and 21st of March 1801. In that of the 13th, near Alexandria, he commanded the brigades which formed the advance against the enemy, and received the thanks of Sir Ralph Abercromby. He was second in command of the division of the army that proceeded to Cairo under the command of Lieut.-General Hutchinson (afterwards the Earl of Donoughmore), and was at the action of Rhamanie on the 9th of May 1801, and at the surrender of Cairo and Alexandria. The surrender of the latter place on the 2d of September following, terminated the campaign, after which he was appointed to the command of a force of 4,000 men, to proceed to Corfu; but the preliminaries of peace being signed on the 1st of October between Great Britain and France, put an end to the expedition, and he returned to England, when he was again honored with the thanks of Parliament. The Grand Seignior had also established the order of knighthood of the Crescent, of which the general officers who served in Egypt were made members.
On the 8th of May 1801, Major-General Cradock had been appointed colonel commandant of the fifty-fourth regiment, and upon the reduction of the army, in 1802, he was placed on half-pay. On the 6th of August 1803, he was appointed colonel of the Seventy-first regiment.
On the 1st of January 1805, Major-General Sir John Cradock, K.B., was advanced to the rank of lieut.-general, and appointed to the command of the forces at Madras. Upon the departure from India of General Lord Lake, in 1806, Lieut.-General Sir John Cradock remained for nearly a year in the command of the forces in that country. In 1808 he was appointed to command the forces in Portugal, during the critical period preceding the arrival of Lieut.-General Sir Arthur Wellesley, and was afterwards appointed Governor of Gibraltar, which in a short time he resigned. On the 6th of January 1809, he was removed from the Seventy-first to the colonelcy of the forty-third regiment. In 1811 he was appointed governor of the Cape of Good Hope, and commander of the forces on that station, which he held until 1814, on the 4th of June of which year he was promoted to the rank of general.
General Sir John Cradock was nominated a Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath on the 2d of January 1815, and in 1819 was created a peer of Ireland, by the title of Baron Howden. At the coronation of His Majesty King William IV. he was advanced to the dignity of a Peer of the United Kingdom. By royal licence he afterwards altered his name to Caradoc, deeming that to be the ancient and veritable orthography. The decease of General the Right Honorable John Francis Caradoc, Baron Howden of Howden and Grimstone in the county of York, and of Cradockstown, county of Kildare, occurred on the 26th of July 1839, at the advanced age of eighty years.
Francis Dundas,
Appointed 7th January 1809.