James Hay (British Army officer, born 1780)
British Army general
Lieutenant-General James Hay (1780 – 25 February 1854) was a British Army officer who saw service during the Peninsular War and the Waterloo Campaign. He was the last owner of the Arnolfini Portrait before it was bought by the National Gallery.
Life
He was born in Braco, Scotland the son of John Hay and joined the 16th Light Dragoons as a cornet on 10 June 1795. He was subsequently promoted to Lieutenant on 4 March 1795; to Captain on 28 February 1799; to Major on 2 January 1812 and to Lieutenant-colonel on 18 February 1813.
During the Peninsular War, Hay was present at the battles of Vittoria and the Nive for which he received the Army Gold Medal with one clasp. He had his arm broken at the Battle of Salamanca. In one engagement he led his regiment against the Lancers de Berg during which 70 enemy men and a squadron chief were captured.
On 22 June 1815, on the recommendation of Wellington, he was appointed a Companion of the Most Honourable Order of the Bath (CB) for his services at Quatre Bras and Waterloo. He was so seriously injured at Waterloo that he could not be moved from the field for eight days.
He later claimed (very implausibly) that the Arnolfini Portrait hung in the room in Brussels where he recovered further, and he bought it from the landlord.
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This entry incorporates text from “James Hay (British Army officer, born 1780)” 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.