Portal:British Empire/Selected biography/1



Major General Roger Elliott (ca. 1665 - May 15, 1714) was one of the earliest British Governors of Gibraltar. His nephew George Augustus Eliott also became a noted Governor and defender of Gibraltar.

Roger Elliott was born, possibly in London but more probably in the Tangier Garrison in Morocco, to George Elliott (ca. 1636 - 1668, the Chirurgeon to the Garrison) and his wife Catherine Maxwell (ca. 1638 - 1709). George Elliott was the illegitimate son of Richard Eliot, the wayward second son of Sir John Eliot.

Roger's father, George Elliott, died at the Tangier Garrison in 1668 and his widowed mother remarried there on February 22, 1670 to Robert Spotswood (September 17, 1637 - 1680, the assistant and replacement Chirurgeon at the Garrison), and thirdly to Rev Dr George Mercer, the Garrison schoolmaster. Roger was therefore an older half-brother to Alexander Spotswood (ca. 1676 - June 6, 1740), who would become a noted Lieutenant-Governor of Virginia. (more...)