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Edward Cornwallis Facts & Worksheets

Edward Cornwallis was a British career military officer and was a part of the aristocratic Cornwallis family. He attained the rank of Lieutenant General.

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Edward Cornwallis was a British career military officer and was a part of the aristocratic Cornwallis family. He attained the rank of Lieutenant General. He was the founder of Halifax in 1749, governor of Nova Scotia from 1749-52, military leader, and governor of Gibraltar from 1762-76.

See the fact file below for more information on the Edward Cornwallis or alternatively, you can download our 22-page Edward Cornwallis worksheet pack to utilise within the classroom or home environment.

Key Facts & Information

EARLY LIFE AND EDUCATION

  • Edward Cornwallis was born on March 5, 1713, in London, England.
  • Edward Cornwallis was the 6th son of Lord Charles, the 4th Baron Cornwallis, and Lady Charlotte Butler, daughter of the Earl of Arran.
  • Charles Cornwallis, 3rd Baron Cornwallis, the First Lord of the Admiralty was his grandfather.
  • Richard Butler, the 1st Earl of Arran, and a Governor of Ireland (1682-1684) was his maternal grandfather.
  • Charles Cornwallis, 1st Marquess Cornwallis, James Cornwallis, 4th Earl Cornwallis, and William Cornwallis were all his nephews.
  • The Cornwallis family possessed lands at Culford in Suffolk and the Channel Islands.
  • Cornwallis and his twin brother, Frederick, got their first job at age 12 when they were appointed royal pages to King George I.
  • They studied at Eton College and entered the military in 1730.
  • At the age of 18, in 1731, Edward was appointed into the 47th Regiment of Foot.
  • Originally, it was not defined which twin brother would enter the church and which the military. The subject was decided by accident: one day, Frederick fell, and the damage paralyzed his arm. He would take the religious path.
  • In 1742, Edward Cornwallis reached the rank of major.
  • When his older brother died, he took the family’s seat in Parliament in 1743.

MILITARY CAREER

  • The first war experience of Cornwallis came in 1745 at the Battle of Fontenoy during the War of Austrian Succession. This war was a precursor to the global Seven Years’ War (1756-1763) between imperial competitors France and Britain.
  • Cornwallis’s commander, Colonel Craig, was killed in action. Cornwallis took charge of his unit, and he organized a retreat.
  • While the retreat was respected by the military, the British public chided the expedition for their losses.
  • Despite the difficulty, Cornwallis won a prestigious post as groom of the king’s bedchamber in 1747 until 1764.

PACIFICATION OF THE SCOTTISH HIGHLANDS

  • The exiled Catholic Scottish leader Charles Edward Stuart, later known as Bonnie Prince Charlie, raised a Highland army and advanced to Derby, England, in 1745, before flying to Scotland.
  • British forces, led by William Augustus, the Duke of Cumberland, were sent to break the rebellion. Cornwallis fought alongside Cumberland, together with James Wolfe and others.
  • The final battle came on April 16, 1746, at Culloden, famously known as the Battle of Culloden.
  • Cornwallis led 320 soldiers to pacify an area of the Scottish Highlands.
  • The Duke of Cumberland ordered Cornwallis to “plunder, burn and destroy through all the west part of Invernesshire called Lochaber.” He added: “You have positive orders to bring no more prisoners to the camp.” The campaign of Cumberland was afterward described as one of unrestrained violence by one historian.
  • Cornwallis ordered his troops to chase off livestock and destroy crops and food stores.
  • Against Cornwallis’ orders, some soldiers raped and murdered non-combatants in an incident to threaten Jacobites from further resistance.
  • Having helped accomplish the British purposes by the end of the summer, Cornwallis returned to London.

FOUNDING OF HALIFAX

  • Cornwallis was appointed as governor of Nova Scotia in 1749 and sent to found Halifax to counter France’s Louisbourg Fortress. The two European authorities were rivals for territory in North America and had fighting rights for Nova Scotia.
  • France had invaded British settlements along the eastern seaboard from Louisbourg.
  • To the British, the land of Nova Scotia incorporated modern mainland Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, as well as the Island of Prince Edward. France believed that Nova Scotia included just mainland Nova Scotia.
  • Mi’kmaq leaders believed Cornwallis had no claim to the territory. The site he chose for Halifax was in Mi’kmaq moose hunting grounds, a religious pilgrimage area at the head of several vital waterways.
  • After initial offers of peace, both sides clashed. The warriors of Mi’kmaq started a guerrilla campaign to contain the English in the Halifax settlement.
  • Cornwallis recognized only one solution. He addressed the Board of Trade in London, “Without force and without money, nothing can be done,” which oversaw his mission.
  • London pushed him to engage in trade with the Mi’kmaq and keep the peace with France, but Cornwallis doubted both and assumed they were working together to attack Halifax.
  • He sent soldiers and mercenaries to drive away these Mi’kmaq people from the fortified settlement.
  • In October 1749, he declared an order that came to be known as the Scalping Proclamation, wherein his government would give a bounty to anyone who killed a Mi’kmaq adult or child in a bid to send them off mainland Nova Scotia. Several reports detail attacks on Mi’kmaq villages and mercenaries taking in dozens of scalps to claim bounties.
  • The Acadians, a community of neutral French immigrants in Nova Scotia, refused to take a full oath of loyalty to the British Crown.
  • He started recruiting the so-called Foreign Protestants from across Europe to settle in Nova Scotia. When he had enough manpower to manage the Acadian farmlands, he intended to expel them. (Also called “The Expulsion of the Acadians”, it was carried out in 1755.)
  • In the fall of 1752, Cornwallis left the territory and went back to London. Halifax was strongly established. France had been kept away from the mainland of Nova Scotia, confined mostly to Louisbourg. Cornwallis had greatly developed the British hold on Nova Scotia.

COURTS MARTIAL AND EXILE

  • In 1756, at the outset of the Seven Years’ War, he joined Admiral John Byng’s navy to relieve the garrison at Minorca, which was being attacked by French forces. Cornwallis decided with Byng to return home, as they believed the French were too established. Cornwallis, together with Byng and other leaders, were arrested. They needed an escort going to court to avoid the anger of a crowd, which later burned them in effigy. Newspapers ran cartoons caricaturing Cornwallis. Britain failed to claim Minorca. Cornwallis justified himself robustly, stating the mission was foolhardy. He was exonerated while Byng was convicted and executed.
  • In 1757, Cornwallis joined a voyage to attack the French port of Rochefort on the Bay of Biscay. Under alike situations, the mission returned home without attacking. James Wolfe was also on the charge and pressed for an immediate assault, while Cornwallis was called as a witness in a subsequent court-martial but escaped punishment.
  • From June 14, 1761 to January 1776, he served as the governor of Gibraltar. He died in office at the age of 63.

PERSONAL LIFE

  • In 1763, Cornwallis married Mary Townshend, daughter of Charles Townshend, 2nd Viscount Townshend, and Dorothy Townshend (Walpole), the sister of Robert Walpole.
  • The couple did not produce any children.
  • His brother, Charles Cornwallis, the first Earl of Cornwallis married Mary’s half-sister, Elizabeth, daughter of Charles and his first wife, Elizabeth Pelham. Their marriage made him become the uncle of Charles Cornwallis, 1st Marquess Cornwallis.

LEGACY

  • Cornwallis’s name was restored as the founder of Halifax in 1899 when the city celebrated its 150th anniversary. A statue of him was built in the city in the 1930s.
  • In 1993, Daniel Paul, a Mi’kmaq historian composed a book named We Were Not the Savages, which highlighted the Scalping Proclamation and described Cornwallis as a white supremacist responsible for the genocide of the Mi’kmaq people. Paul fought to have the statue removed and to have the name of Cornwallis removed from schools and streets. In 2011, Cornwallis Junior High in Halifax changed its name to Halifax Central Junior High.
  • Cornwallis’ statue was taken down at the start of 2018.
  • Cornwallis continues to be a figure of extreme controversy.

Edward Cornwallis Worksheets

This is a fantastic bundle which includes everything you need to know about the Edward Cornwallis across 22 in-depth pages. These are ready-to-use Edward Cornwallis worksheets that are perfect for teaching students about Edward Cornwallis who was a British career military officer and was a part of the aristocratic Cornwallis family. He attained the rank of Lieutenant General. He was the founder of Halifax in 1749, governor of Nova Scotia from 1749-52, military leader, and governor of Gibraltar from 1762-76.

Complete List Of Included Worksheets

  • Edward Cornwallis Facts
  • Cornwallis Quick Facts
  • Biographical Info
  • The Aristocrats
  • Career Life
  • Significant Dates
  • Cornwallis in Jail
  • Get to Know Nova Scotia
  • Great Rivals
  • Controversial
  • Remember or Not?

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Use With Any Curriculum

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