BERESFORD, Sir William Carr (1768-1854), of Beresford, Staffs.

After a far flung military career in which he had proved a distinguished officer and a controversial general,Gent. Mag. (1854), i. 311. Beresford, the hero of Albuera, was thanked by Parliament for his services three weeks before he was returned for county Waterford on the interest of his legitimate brother the 2nd Marquess. The premier at once secured for him the government of Cork.NLI, Richmond mss 73/1724. The prominent part he played in the Peninsular war prevented him from taking his seat in the House,Surr. RO, Goulburn mss 2/13, Peel to Goulburn, 2 Nov. 1812. where he would have been expected to support government. At its successful conclusion he received a peerage, as well as similar foreign honours. At the time, according to Lord Liverpool, he possessed not an acre anywhere,Add. 38257, f. 241. but he subsequently purchased the ancestral estate of the Beresfords in England. Creevey described him as

such a low-looking ruffian in his air, with damned bad manners, or rather none at all [that] I defy any human being to find out that he is either a marshal or a lord; but you do find out that he has been in every part of the world, and in all the interesting scenes of it for the last five and thirty years.Creevey Pprs. ed. Maxwell, ii. 126-7.

He died 8 Jan. 1854.