George Augustus Eliott

General George Augustus Eliott, later Lord Heathfield, held Gibraltar through the longest siege in British military history. He was the youngest of many sons of a Scottish baronet, educated at Leiden, and trained as an engineer before joining the cavalry. He fought in the War of the Austrian Succession and was wounded at Dettingen, then distinguished himself in Germany during the Seven Years' War and at the capture of Havana in 1762. He was appointed governor of Gibraltar in 1776. Spain and France besieged the rock from June 1779, hoping to recover it while Britain was occupied with the American war, and the siege lasted three years and seven months. Eliott's defence rested on preparation and on discipline rather than on dash. He rationed strictly and shared the ration himself, being a vegetarian who drank water and slept little. He had his gunners fire heated shot, which set the attacking ships alight, and his engineers cut galleries into the north face of the rock from which guns could fire down on the isthmus; those tunnels are still there. A great assault in September 1782 using purpose-built floating batteries was destroyed in a day. The relief of the garrison by Howe's fleet the following month ended any Spanish hope. Gibraltar remained British at the Peace of Paris, and Eliott was made Baron Heathfield of Gibraltar. The siege cost the Spanish and French far more than it cost the garrison, and it tied down forces that might have been used in America. Joshua Reynolds painted him holding the key of the fortress, and the portrait hangs in the National Gallery. He died at Aachen in 1790 while travelling home from the Rock, and never saw England again.

• Lived: 1717 CE – 1790 CE
• Nationality: British
• Roles: military