Sir George Head (1782–1855) was an English
commissariat officer and deputy
Knight Marshal.
Head, elder brother of Sir
Francis Bond Head, was born at the Hermitage in the parish of
Higham, Kent, in 1782, but there is no entry of his baptism in Higham parish register.
He was educated at the Charterhouse. In 1808 he became a
captain in the
West Kent militia, then at
Woodbridge, Suffolk, but in the following year joined the
British Army at
Lisbon as a clerk in the commissariat. He served during the remainder of the
Peninsular War, following the army to the fields of
Vitoria,
Nivelle, and
Toulouse, and to the actions in the
Pyrenees. He was promoted to be deputy-assistant commissary-general in 1811, and assistant commissary-general on 25 December 1814. From May 1813 he was in charge of the commissariat of the 3rd division of the Spanish army under Sir
Thomas Picton, concerning whom he has recorded many interesting particulars in the
Memoirs of an Assistant Commissary-General.
Returning to in August 1814, he was on the following 28 October ordered to proceed to
Halifax, Nova Scotia; thence he went to
Quebec, and was afterwards employed on
Lake Huron. In ten months he came back to England, and after a year's holiday returned to Halifax, where he remained five years on the peace establishment. Subsequently he served in Ireland, and in 1823 was placed on half-pay.
In 1829 he published his Canadian reminiscences under the title of
Forest Scenery and Incidents in the Wilds of North......
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