Edward Charles Whinyates

General Sir Edward Charles Whinyates, KCB, KH, (6 May 1782 – 25 December 1865) was a senior British Army artillery officer.

He was the son of Major Thomas Whinyates of Abbotsleigh, Devon and was educated at Newcombe's School in Hackney. In 1796 he entered the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich as a cadet and was commissioned as second lieutenant in the Royal Artillery on 1 March 1798.

He became lieutenant in 1799 and accompanied the expedition in that year to Den Helder in the Netherlands and the expedition to Madeira in 1801. When Madeira was evacuated at the Peace of Amiens, he went with his company to Jamaica and was made adjutant. In 1805 he was promoted second captain and came home. He served as adjutant to the artillery in the attack on Copenhagen in 1807 and the following year was posted to D troop of the Royal Horse Artillery.

In February 1810 he embarked with his unit for the Peninsula, but their transport ship Camilla nearly sank and had to put back. Owing to this, D troop did not take the field as a unit till 1811. However Whinyates was present at Busaco in 1810, acting as adjutant to the officer commanding the artillery. He was also at the Battle of Albuera on 16 May 1811 with four guns, the cavalry affair at Usagre on 25 May, and in the actions at Fuentes de Guinaldo and Aldea de Ponte on 25 and 27 Sept.

In 1812 D troop was with Rowland Hill's corps on the Tagus river. At Ribera Whinyates made such good use of two guns that the French commander Lallemand inquired his name, and sent him a message: ‘Tell that brave man that if it had not been for him, I should have beaten your cavalry’. When the captain of D troop died at Madrid in October Whinyates took over the command for the next four months, during which time the troop distinguished itself at San Muñoz on 17 November, at the close of the retreat from Burgos, five out of its six guns being injured. General Long, who commanded the cavalry to which it was attached, afterwards wrote of the troop that he had never witnessed ‘more exemplary conduct in quarters, nor more distinguished zeal and gallantry in the field.’

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