Sir John Braithwaite, 1st Baronet

Educated at Westminster School, Braithwaite was commissioned as an ensign in the 53rd Regiment of Foot on 6 November 1765.^[2] Promoted to lieutenant-colonel on 22 October 1772, he seized the Maharaja of Vizianagram's fort during a local dispute on 28 August 1777.^[2] He was then given command of a brigade which included one battalion of Europeans, the 3rd Carnatic Battalion, the 4th Carnatic Battalion and the 20th Carnatic Battalion: with this army he defeated a French force at Mahé in March 1779.^[2]

In the summer of 1780 Hyder Ali invaded the Carnatic with over 60,000 men precipitating the Second Anglo-Mysore War: he took Braithwaite prisoner at Seringapatam in February 1782 and held him captive for two years.^[2] Braithwaite became acting Commander-in-Chief of the Madras Army in August 1792, conducting the successful Siege of Pondicherry in 1793 and remained in that role until 1796.^[2]

Braithwaite was adjutant-general of the force that defeated Tipu Sultan at the Siege of Seringapatam in April 1799 so concluding the Fourth Anglo-Mysore War.^[2] He became Commander-in-Chief of the Madras Army in January 1800^[3] and, after retiring in 1801, he was created a Baronet on 18 December 1802^[4] and died at his home in London on 16 August 1803.^[5]

He married Elizabeth Brown, daughter of John Brown and Elizabeth Colleton, daughter of Sir John Colleton, 3rd Baronet, and had one surviving son George-Charles, second and last Baronet, and a daughter Sylvia, who married Charles Parkhurst.^[6]