John Byng, 1st Earl of Strafford  Field Marshal John Byng, 1st Earl of Strafford (1772 – 3 June 1860), of 6 Portman Square, London, of Ballaghy, Londonderry and latterly of Wrotham Park in Middlesex (now Hertfordshire), and of 5, St James's Square, London, was a British Army officer and politician. After serving as a junior officer during the French Revolutionary Wars and Irish Rebellion of 1798, he became Commanding Officer of the Grenadier Battalion of the 3rd Regiment of Foot Guards during the disastrous Walcheren Campaign. He served as a brigade commander at the Battle of Vitoria and then at the Battle of Roncesvalles on 25 July 1813 when his brigade took the brunt of the French assault and held its position for three hours in the early morning before finally being forced back. During the Hundred Days he commanded the 2nd Guards Brigade at the Battle of Quatre Bras in June 1815 and again at the Battle of Waterloo later that month when light companies from his brigade played an important role in the defence of Château d'Hougoumont. He went on to be Commander-in-Chief, Ireland and, after leaving Ireland in 1831, he was elected as Whig Member of Parliament for Poole in Dorset and was one of the few military men who supported the Reform Bill, for which he was rewarded with a peerage. He was the third son of George Byng (1735–1789) of Wrotham Park in Middlesex (now in Hertfordshire) (eldest son of Robert Byng (1703-1740), Governor of Barbados) by his wife and Anne Conolly, whose mother was a daughter of Thomas Wentworth, 1st Earl of Strafford (1672-1739), (of the second creation of that title). His great-grandfather was Admiral George Byng, 1st Viscount Torrington (1663-1733) of Southill Park in Bedfordshire. He was educated at Westminster School. He was commissioned as an ensign in the 33rd Regiment of Foot ("Duke of Wellington's Regiment") on 30 September 1793 and was promoted to lieutenant on 1 December 1793 and to captain on 27 December 1794. He was sent to the Netherlands later that year where he was wounded during a skirmish at Geldermalsen in January 1795 during the Flanders Campaign.