Allan Maclean of Torloisk - Revision history

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minor improve details as per guidelines and fixed typos

← Older revision		Revision as of 00:04, 1 February 2026
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	\| resting_place =		\| resting_place =
	\| resting_place_coordinates =		\| resting_place_coordinates =
	~~\| nationality = British~~
	\| other_names =		\| other_names =
	\| known_for = [[Battle of Quebec (1775)]]		\| known_for =
			{{tree list}}
			* [[Jacobite Rising of 1745]]
			* [[War of the Austrian Succession]]
			* [[Seven Years' War]]
			* [[American Revolutionary War]]
			** [[Battle of Quebec (1775)]]
			{{tree list/end}}
	\| education =		\| education =
	\| employer = {{flagicon image\|Jacobite Standard (1745).svg}} [[Jacobitism\|Jacobites]]<br>{{flag\|Dutch Republic}}<br>{{flagicon image\|Flag of the British East India Company (1707).svg}} [[British East India Company]]<br>{{flagcountry\|Kingdom of Great Britain}}\| occupation =British Army officer		\| employer = {{flagicon image\|Jacobite Standard (1745).svg}} [[Jacobitism\|Jacobites]]<br>{{flag\|Dutch Republic}}<br>{{flagicon image\|Flag of the British East India Company (1707).svg}} [[British East India Company]]<br>{{flagcountry\|Kingdom of Great Britain}}\| occupation =British Army officer
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	\| spouse =		\| spouse =
	\| partner =		\| partner =
	\| children = ~~son~~ out of wedlock		\| children = Son out of wedlock
	\| parents = [[Donald Maclean, 5th Laird of Torloisk]] & Mary (Campbell) Maclean		\| parents = [[Donald Maclean, 5th Laird of Torloisk]] & Mary (Campbell) Maclean
	\| relatives =[[Francis McLean (British army officer)\|Francis McLean]]		\| relatives =[[Francis McLean (British army officer)\|Francis McLean]]
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	==Jacobite rising and after==		==Jacobite rising and after==
			{{unreferenced section\|date=November 2025}}
	Participating in the Jacobite rising of 1746, and fighting at the [[Siege of Fort William]] and [[Battle of Culloden]] with the Maclachlans and Macleans battalion, he spent the next four years in exile, including in the service of France during [[War of the Austrian Succession]], again in the Scots brigade in the rank of a lieutenant at [[Siege of Bergen op Zoom (1747)\|Bergen Op Zoom]] in 1747, where he and [[Francis McLean (British army officer)\|Francis McLean]] were taken prisoner after they were part of the brigade that cut their way through the French lines. Lieutenants Allan and Francis Maclean were then presented before [[Ulrich Friedrich Woldemar von Löwendal\|General von Lowenthal]], who said to them, <blockquote>Gentlemen, consider yourselves on parole. If all had conducted themselves as your brave corps have done, I should not now be master of Bergen-op-Zoom.</blockquote> He returned to Edinburgh in 1750.		Participating in the Jacobite rising of 1746, and fighting at the [[Siege of Fort William]] and [[Battle of Culloden]] with the Maclachlans and Macleans battalion, he spent the next four years in exile, including in the service of France during [[War of the Austrian Succession]], again in the Scots brigade in the rank of a lieutenant at [[Siege of Bergen op Zoom (1747)\|Bergen Op Zoom]] in 1747, where he and [[Francis McLean (British army officer)\|Francis McLean]] were taken prisoner after they were part of the brigade that cut their way through the French lines. Lieutenants Allan and Francis Maclean were then presented before [[Ulrich Friedrich Woldemar von Löwendal\|General von Lowenthal]], who said to them, <blockquote>Gentlemen, consider yourselves on parole. If all had conducted themselves as your brave corps have done, I should not now be master of Bergen-op-Zoom.</blockquote> He returned to Edinburgh in 1750.

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	MacLean Memorial School is located in the town of Chibougamau in the Northern Quebec region about 230 km north from St-Félicien (Lac St-Jean).		MacLean Memorial School is located in the town of Chibougamau in the Northern Quebec region about 230 km north from St-Félicien (Lac St-Jean).

	In 2007 a cairn was unveiled at Kilninian Church in memory of Brigadier-General Allan Maclean of Torloisk, who 'saved Canada for the Empire' in 1775.<ref>[http://www.lornlife.com/Pdf/August07/lorn%2021.pdf Mull the venue for Clan Maclean gathering, August 2007]</ref>		In 2007 a cairn was unveiled at Kilninian Church in memory of Brigadier-General Allan Maclean of Torloisk, who 'saved Canada for [[British Empire\|the Empire]]' in 1775.<ref>{{Cite web \|url=http://www.lornlife.com/Pdf/August07/lorn%2021.pdf \|title=Mull the venue for Clan Maclean gathering, August 2007 \|access-date=3 October 2009 \|archive-date=12 May 2008 \|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080512082757/http://www.lornlife.com/Pdf/August07/lorn%2021.pdf \|url-status=dead }}</ref>

	==Further reading==		==Further reading==
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	[[Category:Clan Maclean\|Allan]]		[[Category:Clan Maclean\|Allan]]
	[[Category:British East India Company Army officers]]		[[Category:British East India Company Army officers]]
	[[Category:British Army ~~generals~~]]		[[Category:British Army brigadiers]]
	[[Category:Royal American Regiment officers]]		[[Category:Royal American Regiment officers]]
	[[Category:Jacobite military personnel of the Jacobite rising of 1745]]		[[Category:Jacobite military personnel of the Jacobite rising of 1745]]

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{{Short description|British Army general}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=May 2021}}
{{Infobox person
| name = Allan Maclean
| image =Lieutenant Colonel Allan MacLean2.jpg
| caption =
| birth_name = Allan Maclean
| birth_date = 1725<ref>Date of birth unknown because the old parish registers for Kilninian survive only from 1766</ref>
| birth_place = Torloisk near Kilninian, [[Argyll]], [[Scotland]]
| death_date = {{death date and age |df=yes|1798|2|18 |1725 }}<ref>{{cite DCB |first=G. F. G. |last=Stanley |title-Maclean, Allan |volume=4 |url=http://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/maclean_allan_4E.html}}</ref>
| death_place =[[London]]
| death_cause =
| resting_place =
| resting_place_coordinates =
| nationality = British
| other_names =
| known_for = [[Battle of Quebec (1775)]]
| education =
| employer = {{flagicon image|Jacobite Standard (1745).svg}} [[Jacobitism|Jacobites]]<br>{{flag|Dutch Republic}}<br>{{flagicon image|Flag of the British East India Company (1707).svg}} [[British East India Company]]<br>{{flagcountry|Kingdom of Great Britain}}| occupation =British Army officer
| title = Brigadier-General
| term = 1756–1783
| predecessor =
| successor =
| party = Jacobite
| boards =
| spouse =
| partner =
| children = son out of wedlock
| parents = [[Donald Maclean, 5th Laird of Torloisk]] & Mary (Campbell) Maclean
| relatives =[[Francis McLean (British army officer)|Francis McLean]]
| signature =
| website =
| footnotes =
}}

{{Clan Maclean}}
'''Allan Maclean of Torloisk''' (1725–1798) was a [[Jacobitism|Jacobite]] who became a [[British Army]] general. He was born on the [[Isle of Mull]], Scotland. He is best known for leading the [[84th Regiment of Foot (Royal Highland Emigrants)]] in the [[Battle of Quebec (1775)|Battle of Quebec]].

==Early life==
Allan was the third son of [[Donald Maclean, 5th Laird of Torloisk]] and Mary (Campbell) Maclean, daughter of Archibald Campbell of Sunderland.<ref>{{cite book |last= Fryer |first=Mary Beacock |author-link=Mary Beacock Fryer |title=Allan Maclean, Jacobite General |year=1987 |publisher=[[Dundurn Press]] | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=IYY_vhvnXXcC |isbn=1-55002-011-0 }}</ref> His other siblings were Hector, Lachlan,<ref>eventually [[Lachlan Maclean, 7th laird of Torloisk]]</ref> Archibald, Mary, Anna, Alicia, Christiana, Betty, and Elizabeth.<ref name=etc>{{cite book |last=MacLean |first=John Patterson |author-link=John Patterson MacLean|title=A History of the Clan MacLean from Its First Settlement at Duard Castle, in the Isle of Mull, to the Present Period: Including a Genealogical Account of Some of the Principal Families Together with Their Heraldry, Legends, Superstitions, Etc. |year=1889|publisher=R. Clarke & Co. | url=https://archive.org/details/ahistoryclanmac00maclgoog |page=[https://archive.org/details/ahistoryclanmac00maclgoog/page/n319 312] |quote=Laird of Brolas. }}</ref> His family, though titled, was quite poor, the Maclean of Torloisk's property valued at £671 6s.<ref>Munro, R. W., Macquarrie, Alan, ''Clan MacQuarrie: A History'', Chapter 3, [https://web.archive.org/web/20071114205003/http://albanach.org/macquarrie/ch3.html]</ref> Maclaine begun his military training with the clan as a 17-year-old lieutenant in the [[Scots Brigade]] of the Royal Dutch Republic after a brief service as an adjutant.

==Jacobite rising and after==
Participating in the Jacobite rising of 1746, and fighting at the [[Siege of Fort William]] and [[Battle of Culloden]] with the Maclachlans and Macleans battalion, he spent the next four years in exile, including in the service of France during [[War of the Austrian Succession]], again in the Scots brigade in the rank of a lieutenant at [[Siege of Bergen op Zoom (1747)|Bergen Op Zoom]] in 1747, where he and [[Francis McLean (British army officer)|Francis McLean]] were taken prisoner after they were part of the brigade that cut their way through the French lines. Lieutenants Allan and Francis Maclean were then presented before [[Ulrich Friedrich Woldemar von Löwendal|General von Lowenthal]], who said to them, <blockquote>Gentlemen, consider yourselves on parole. If all had conducted themselves as your brave corps have done, I should not now be master of Bergen-op-Zoom.</blockquote> He returned to Edinburgh in 1750.

==Seven Years' War==
On 8 January 1756 he was commissioned a lieutenant, and later travelled to the American colonies with the 62nd, later the 60th Royal America Regiment for two years. After being severely wounded at Ticonderoga on 8 July 1758 while with James Abercromby's troops taking part in the assault against Montcalm's forces in [[Fort Carillon]]. He served as a temporary captain under Wolfe at the taking of Quebec<ref>possibly in Montgomery's Highlanders</ref> and on 16 January 1759 was given Captaincy of the Third New York Independent Company, being present at the siege of Niagara in July, where he was again dangerously wounded. While serving in that unit, from 1761 he also begun to participate in raising the [[114th Regiment of Foot (Royal Highlander Volunteers)|114th Foot (Maclean's Highlanders)]], helping to raise six companies when he returned to Scotland, and remaining with it as the Major Commandant until 1763. However the regiment never went on active service, and served only as a source of recruits for other Highland regiments serving in Germany and British America.
A number of officers and soldiers from his regiment settled on St John's (Prince Edward) Island. While Maclean also later received a land grant on the island along with several other Maclean gentry, there is no record of him living there.
In 1765 he moved to Paris where he fathered a son out of wedlock, and was recruited by the [[East India Company]]. Returning to England not in the rank of a Major, Allan begun to court Janet Maclean in [[Glasgow]]<ref>Donald Maclean of Brolass, father of Janet Maclean of Brolass, the wife of Allan Maclean, and father of Hector the 23rd chief.</ref> whom he had met earlier, and who came to London to be closer to him. At this time he also engaged in writing letters signed "Junius" which appeared in the Public Advertiser, advocating freedom of the press. On 4 February 1771 he wed Janet at the Monkwell Presbyterian Meeting House though she was half his age,<ref>b. c.1750; Later the site of the [[National Bank of Scotland]] building, the first Scottish bank to open a branch in London in 1864</ref> which included a piper, at that time still forbidden in London. On 25 May of the following year he was appointed an active lieutenant-colonel in the army with full pay of one pound a day, but was not assigned a battalion, so had no duties to perform. Shortly before that his older brother Lauchlin was appointed Commissary-General of the army in [[Bengal]], and was leaving England with his other brother Harry who had been hired as a secretary in the office of the East India Company in Calcutta. Allan had been close with both, but Lauchlin was still involved with the Jacobites, and this association could hurt his career. At this time a teenage son from Janet's father's second marriage came to live with them and, since they had not been able to conceive a child of their own, Allen revealed his son in France, and Janet agreed to foster the nine-year-old. Wanting to return to active service he eventually secured an audience with the Secretary at War, [[William Barrington, 2nd Viscount Barrington]] who refused his resignation to enable him to join the East India Company because the Crown needed officers with experience in the American colonies where trouble was expected over the [[Townshend Acts]] and the [[Stamp Act]].

==Return to American colonies==
Maclean's proposal to raise a Highland regiment for service in the colonies had to be sent to the King, who, as Captain-General, approves all new levies personally. The regiment was initially called the [[84th Regiment of Foot (Royal Highland Emigrants)|Royal Highland Emigrants]] and would be raised in the colonies from Highlanders settled there, commencing with New York. However, on arrival Maclean was warned that going into the city in his regimental uniform would invite attacks from the rebels, and that the British garrison had departed to Boston. He therefore sailed to that city to obtain commissions for his officers from [[Thomas Gage|General Gage]]. However, soon Gage retired due to age, and Maclean accompanied General Haldimand to New York who, although a British subject, was replaced by [[William Howe, 5th Viscount Howe|Sir William Howe]], a brother of [[George Howe, 3rd Viscount Howe|Viscount Howe]] and former colonel of 3rd Battalion, the 60th Regiment. He then proceeded to coordinate the clandestine recruiting activities of his officers, the 1st Battalion recruited in Canada and New York, and the 2nd Battalion in [[Nova Scotia]] and [[Prince Edward Island|St John's Island]], before proceeding to marshal them in Canada, himself travelling alone and in disguise of a doctor.<ref>Fryer, Mary Beacock, Allan Maclean, Jacobite General: The life of an eighteenth century career soldier, Dundurn Press, Toronto, 1987, p.123</ref> During defence of Quebec he was appointed second-in-command by Governor [[Guy Carleton, 1st Baron Dorchester|Guy Carleton]], often sleeping in his uniform at the [[Récollets|Récollet cloister]] in [[Quebec City]] while the city was threatened by a rebel army under [[Benedict Arnold]] which had appeared on the [[Plains of Abraham]] in mid-November. Through the long siege, commanding as many as 1,178 troops,<ref>Morrissey, Brendan, & Hook, Adam, ''Quebec 1775: the American invasion of Canada'', Osprey Publishing, p.52</ref> Maclean suffered a leg injury, causing a partial loss of its use for the remainder of his life.
On 11 May 1776, now in the rank of Colonel, Maclean was appointed Adjutant-General of the army in Canada, which he held until 6 June 1777, when he was granted the rank of Brigadier-General, and ordered to take command of the Montreal Garrison. Due to increased danger for General Burgoyne's position, General Maclean was ordered, on 20 October, to march with the 31st Regiment and his own battalion of the Royal Highland Emigrants, to [[Chimney Point, Vermont]], but during November was ordered to Quebec. He departed Quebec on 27 July 1776, for London in order to obtain rank and establishment for his regiment that had been promised, returning to Quebec on 28 May 1777. In 1778 he again went to England to make a personal appeal to the King on behalf of his regiment, which was successful. Sailing from Spithead on 1 May 1779, he arrived at Quebec on 16 August. Maclean finally became a regimental colonel in the active army 17 November 1780 with his regiment becoming the 84th Regiment of Foot, and with its station on the Canada–US border between [[Oswegatchie, New York]] and [[Fort Michilimackinac]] until 1782.

==After colonial service==
Promoted to Brigadier-General for his services soon after the 1783 [[Treaty of Paris (1783)|Treaty of Paris]] Maclean retired from the military service in 1784. An anomaly for his period, he was a career soldier without significant family wealth and connections, who rose high in rank on merit. A letter to Sir Henry Clinton at the end of the war reveals difficulties in recovering the expenses for the expansion of his regiment. He did not return to live in Scotland, but died in London, in March 1797. Contents of his correspondence with John Maclean of Lochbuie suggest that he died in comparative poverty.

==Commemoration==
MacLean Memorial School is located in the town of Chibougamau in the Northern Quebec region about 230 km north from St-Félicien (Lac St-Jean).

In 2007 a cairn was unveiled at Kilninian Church in memory of Brigadier-General Allan Maclean of Torloisk, who 'saved Canada for the Empire' in 1775.<ref>[http://www.lornlife.com/Pdf/August07/lorn%2021.pdf Mull the venue for Clan Maclean gathering, August 2007]</ref>

==Further reading==
* Private archives, J.N.M. Maclean of Glensanda, the younger (Edinburgh), Torloisk mss and transcripts. G.B.,
* Board of Trade, JTP, 1764–67, 404–14.
* Boatner, ''Encyclopedia of American revolution''. DNB.
* ''Gentleman’s Magazine'', 1798, 354–55. G.B.,
* WO, ''Army list, 1756–84.'', National Archives, Kew, London
* J. N. M. Maclean, ''Reward is secondary; the life of a political adventurer and an inquiry into the mystery of 'Junius''' (London, 1963).
* [[John Patterson MacLean]], ''An historical account of the settlements of Scotch Highlanders in America prior to the peace of 1783'' . . . (Cleveland, Ohio, and Glasgow, 1900; repr. Baltimore, Md., 1968);
* Renaissance of the clan Maclean . . . (Columbus, Ohio, 1913).
* G. F. G. Stanley, ''Canada invaded, 1775–1776'' (Toronto, 1973).
* John F. Röche, Quebec Under Siege, 1775–1776: The "Memorandums" of Jacob Danford, ''Canadian Historical Review'', University of Toronto Press, Volume 50, Number 1 / 1969, pp. 68–85
* Mary Beacock Fryer (1996) ''Allan Maclean, Jacobite General: the life of an eighteenth century career soldier''

==References==
{{Reflist}}

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Maclean of Torloisk, Allan}}
[[Category:Clan Maclean|Allan]]
[[Category:British East India Company Army officers]]
[[Category:British Army generals]]
[[Category:Royal American Regiment officers]]
[[Category:Jacobite military personnel of the Jacobite rising of 1745]]
[[Category:British Army personnel of the French and Indian War]]
[[Category:French military personnel of the War of the Austrian Succession]]
[[Category:People from the Isle of Mull]]
[[Category:1725 births]]
[[Category:1798 deaths]]
[[Category:Scottish generals]]