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Alexander Stewart (British Army officer)

Scottish officer in the British Army and politician

Correspondence, annotated notebooks and portrait silhouettes prepared for research
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Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionJun 28, 2026
Entity authorityQ17318963 ↗
Source-derived summary

Major-General Alexander Stewart (c. 1739 – 16 December 1794) was a Scottish officer in the British Army and a politician.

Military career

Born the second son of John Stewart MP (died 1769) of Castle Stewart, and brother of William Stewart MP, Stewart was commissioned as an ensign in the 37th Regiment of Foot on 8 April 1755. He commanded a field force at Orangeburg and fought at the Battle of Eutaw Springs during the American Revolutionary War. He was appointed lieutenant-colonel of the Third Foot on 7 July 1775; colonel in the army on 16 May 1780; and promoted major-general on 28 April 1790. He was granted the colonelcy of the 2nd (The Queen's Royal) Regiment of Foot on 20 November 1793. He served in the Duke of York's army during the Flanders Campaign, commanding the First Brigade of infantry during the retreat to Holland in 1794. He returned home towards the end of the year and 'fell a sacrifice to an illness contracted in consequence of the fatigues he had undergone', dying 16 December 1794.

He was the member of parliament (MP) for Kirkcudbright Stewartry from 1786 to 1794.

References

Sources

Cannon, Richard (1838).

Editorial summary

This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Alexander Stewart (British Army officer)” as scottish officer in the British Army and politician. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.

Editorial reviewStrongest as a route into the people, institutions and dated events that shaped the subject’s public record. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1739, 1794, 1769, 1755—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1739-01-01. The account is most persuasive where Alexander, Stewart and British can be independently traced.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The subject matters to the people & ideas register because the source frames it as scottish officer in the British Army and politician. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.

Evidence profile

The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 28, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q17318963. VIAF identifies the subject as 17099365. The Library of Congress control number is nr93037504. 2 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1739, 1794, 1769 and 1755.

Critical limits

Public reputation and documentary evidence do not always develop together; absence from a summary is not evidence of historical absence. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Alexander Stewart (British Army officer)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.