General George Keppel, 3rd Earl of Albemarle, (8 April 1724 – 13 October 1772), styled Viscount Bury until 1754, was a British army officer and politician who served in the War of the Austrian Succession, Jacobite rising of 1745 and Seven Years' War. He is best known for his victory over the Spanish during the siege of Havana in 1762.
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Early life
He came from a wealthy and powerful Dutch family from Guelders who had close connections to the Princes of Orange that had moved to England in the seventeenth century, in the aftermath of the Glorious Revolution. His father was Willem van Keppel, 2nd Earl of Albemarle. Through his mother, Lady Anne Lennox, he was a great-grandson of King Charles II of England. He started his military career serving in the Dutch States Army fighting against the French, and in 1745, Keppel participated in the Battle of Fontenoy as an aide to Prince William, Duke of Cumberland.
Military career and death
Keppel had been previously in his military life commissioned an ensign in the Coldstream Regiment of Foot Guards in 1738, becoming a captain-lieutenant of the 1st Regiment of Dragoons in 1741, aged 17, and a captain-lieutenant of the Coldstreams on 7 April 1743. Appointed aide-de-camp to Cumberland in February 1745, was promoted to captain and lieutenant colonel on 27 May 1745. The next year, he was promoted to colonel and made aide-de-camp to George II of Great Britain on 24 April 1746. He had fought at the Battle of Culloden with his father and carried the dispatch of Cumberland's success to London.